Inside Andasibe-Mantadia: A Conservation Success Story for the Indri

Andasibe-Mantadia, a two-hour drive from Antananarivo, is one of the best conservation stories on the island. Two decades ago the indri, the largest living lemur and the one whose haunting call carries for kilometers through the canopy, was hemmed in by shrinking forest. Community-managed reserves bordering the national park have since turned former slash-and-burn plots into buffer forest, giving the indri population room to breathe and giving local guides a steady income from ecotourism instead of logging. Visitor numbers have grown every year that the forest has grown with them, which is the rare case where conservation and local livelihoods are pulling in the same direction.