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TACOMA, Wash. –   Madagascar, a “treasure island” of bizarre plants and exotic animals, is so impoverished that for decades farmers ravaged its rainforests to plant crops—and left 95 percent of the trees burned to the ground.

Animals, too, suffered as local habitat was lost, so that today more than 90 percent of the dozens of lemur species—the long-tailed, dark-masked, nocturnal animals that exist only in Madagascar—are endangered, critically endangered, or threatened.

But a small miracle is underway. In 1991 the anthropologist and conservation biologist Patricia Wright won a personal campaign to create in the southeastern part of the island off Africa. She secured nearly $4 million from USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) to provide health and education for the Ranomafana people. And before long the exotic new park began to attract tourists. Today there are more than 25 small hotels around the park, many more jobs, and schools and health clinics for local families.

Patricia Wright, distinguished service professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, New York, will give a free public lecture telling the story behind the preservation of Madagascar’s living treasures. “Back from the Brink of Extinction: Saving Lemurs in Madagascar” will be held at 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 6, in Rasmussen Rotunda, Wheelock Student Center, ��������. Everyone is invited and a map and directions are below.

Wright, who received a MacArthur “genius” award for her work, will talk about the 30-year project to create Madagascar’s “conservation hub,” which today includes a national park, research station, ecotourism, conservation education, improved local health, reforestation, environmental arts, biodiversity science, and new local businesses.

An earlier talk by Wright that day will be open to Puget Sound students, faculty, and staff who wish to join a senior-level biology class led by Professor Stacey Weiss. The anthropologist will speak to the Biology 472 Animal Behavior class on the topic “Female Dominance in Lemurs.” The class runs 11–11:50 a.m. Monday, March 6, in Wyatt Hall, Room 101.  

Wright told The New York Times in 2014 that the “social contract” developed with the local people in Ranomafana, Madagascar is working:

“[We told the villagers] if they’d stop going into the forest to hunt, we’d make sure they had schools and clinics. And that’s worked well. Right now we have a problem with people coming from elsewhere to do illegal gold mining in the forest. It’s the villagers who go to the government: ‘Get these people out of our park.’”

The lemurs that Wright studies are fascinating both because they have a matriarchal society and because they share a common ancestor with humans. Madagascar was isolated from other land masses for more than 150 million years, and the lemurs likewise were isolated from monkeys and other primates. Some 65–70 million years ago an animal existed that was an ancestor of both lemurs and humans. Wright theorizes that in the future these distant relatives of ours may offer genetic insights into medical solutions for human diseases.

Wright is being brought to campus as part of the Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar program, which arranges distinguished scholar visits to more than 100 colleges and universities a year. Her visit is co-sponsored by: the �������� Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa; the departments of biology, sociology and anthropology, psychology, politics and government, and international political economy; and the Environmental Policy and Decision Making Program, Slater Museum of Natural History, and Robert G. Albertson Professorship.

Patricia Wright, distinguished service professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University, is the founder of Centre ValBio, a modern research campus in the rainforest of Madagascar. For more than two decades, she has combined her research with efforts to preserve the country’s endangered forests and many species of plants and animals. In 1989 she became a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow, and in 1995 she was awarded the Chevalier d’ Ordre National (National Medal of Honor of Madagascar). In 2004 she was further honored with the Officier d’ Ordre National from the president of Madagascar in recognition of her conservation work. Wright was the driving force behind the creation of Ranomafana National Park, a 106,000-acre World Heritage Site in southeastern Madagascar.

For directions and a map of the campus: pugetsound.edu/directions 
For accessibility information please contact accessibility@pugetsound.edu or 253.879.3931, or visit pugetsound.edu/accessibility.

Press photos of Patricia Wright can be downloaded from pugetsound.edu/pressphotos.
Photos on page: From top right: Patricia Wright; ring-tailed lemurs, by Adrian Pingstone.

Tweet this: A model “how to” in #conservation of #Madagascar lemurs. Talk by Patricia Wright @stonybrooku Mar 6 @univpugetsound http://bit.ly/2k9irjW

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