Man and the Environment in Madagascar

Abstract

It would be inconceivable to study the environment in Madagascar without taking into account the part played by man, even though the settlement of the island is a recent phenomenon, probably covering about two millennia as a maximum1. The environment observed almost everywhere is not as it was originally but is the result of direct or indirect human action. The majority of writers acknowledge this fact, but there are a number of obscure points regarding the intensity, speed and extent of human action in the transformation of the environment, both insofar as concerns the flora and fauna and the erosion systems.