Andasibe-Mantadia National Park is a 155 square kilometre protected area consisting principally of primary growth forest in Toamasina Province in eastern Madagascar. The park’s elevation ranges from 900-1250 meters, with a humid climate. Average annual precipitation is 1700 mm, with rainfall on 210 days of each year. This rainforest is habitat to a vast species biodiversity, including many endemic rare species and endangered species, including 11 lemur species. The park’s two component parts are Mantadia National Park and Analamazaotra Reserve, which is best known for its population of Madagascar’s largest lemur, the Indri.
The main threat to this park comes from the disappearance of adjoining habitat outside the park. This disappearance has been caused primarily by logging and replacement of rainforest with commercial Australian eucalyptus and Chinese pine forests, and to a lesser extent by slash-and-burn cultivation for rice agriculture, which is exacerbated by the extremely high population growth rate and poverty in rural Madagascar.
To address the disappearing habitat threat, reserves have been created in the vicinity of Andasibe-Mantadia that balance resource extraction with environmental protection, and attempt to create economic and environmentally-preferable alternatives to replacing native forests with eucalyptus and pine.
