TIMEApril 13, 200943THERE ARE AT LEAST 8 MILLIONunique species of life on theplanet, if not far more, and youcould be forgiven for believingthat all of them can be foundin Andasibe. Walking through this rainforest in Madagascar is like stepping intothe library of life. Sunlight seeps throughthe silky fringes of theRavenea louvelii,anendangered palm found, like so much elseon this African island, nowhere else. Leaf-tailed geckos cling to the trees, cloaked ingreen. A fat Parson's chameleon lies lazilyon abranch, beady eyes scanning for dinner.But the animal Imost hoped to find, I don'tsee at first; I hear it, though-a sustainedgroan that electrifies the forest quiet. MyMalagasy guide, Marie Razafindrasolo,finds the source of the sound perched ona branch.Itis the black-and-white indri,largest of the lemurs-a type of smallAn Island ApartMadagascar split from India80milliontoIDamillion years ago. All thattime in virtual isolation meant thatwildlife on the island followed its ownevolutionary path. This helped produceunique species like thefossa, a catlikecarnivore with the agility of a squirreland the attitude of a wolverine.44SPECIAL REPORTIEXTINCTIONCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: INGO ARNDT-MINDEN; PETE OXFORD-MINDEN; DANTE FEN OLIO-PHOTO RESEARCHERS; ZSSD-MINDEN: DANIEL HEUCLIN-PHOTO RESEARCHERS;S. JANSSEN-MINDEN; FRANS LANTING; PIOTR NASKRECKI; PETE OXFORD-MINDEN; CENTER: ALBERT LLEAL-MINDENSPECIAL REPORTIEXTINCTIONDead forestsMadagascar has.zost more than80%of itsforests, chiefly to the slash-and-burnstyle of ricefarming know astavy,which exhausts the soil as it destroys habitatsprimate found only in Madagascar. Thecry is known as a spacing call, a warning toother indris to keep their distance, to pre-vent competition for food. But there's notmuch risk of interlopers. The species-likemany other lemurs, like many other ani-mals in Madagascar, like so much oflife onEarth-is endangered and dwindling fast.Madagascar-which separated fromIndia 80 million to 100 million years agobefore eventually settling off the south-eastern coast of Africa:-is in many waysan Earth apart. All that time in geographicisolation made Madagascar a Darwinianplayground, its animals and plants evolv-ing into forms utterly original. They in-clude species as strange-looking as thepygmy mouse lemur-a chirping, palm-size mammal that may be the smallestprimate on the planet-and as hauntingas the carnivorous fossa, a catlike animalabout 30 in. long. Some 90% of the island'splants and about 70% of its animals are en-demic, meaning that they are found onlyin Madagascar. But what makes life on theisland unique also makes it uniquely vul-nerable."Ifwe lose these animals on Mad-agascar, they're gone forever," says RussellMittermeier, president of the wildlifegroup Conservation International (CI).That loss seems likelier than ever be-cause the animals are under threat as neverbefore. Once lushly forested, Madagascarhas seen more than 80% of its original veg-etation cut down or burned since humansarrived at least1,500years ago, fragment-ing habitats and leaving animals effective-ly homeless. Unchecked hunting wipedout a number of large species, and todaymining, logging and energy explorationthreaten those that remain. "You have anarea the size of New Jersey in Madagascarthat is still under forest, and all this in-credible diversity is crammed into it," saysMittermeier, an American who has beentraveling to the country for more than25years. "We're very concerned."Madagascar is a conservation hotspot-a term for a region that is very bio-diverse and particularly threatened-andwhile that makes the island special, it ishardly alone. Conservationists estimatethat extinctions worldwide are occurringat a pace that is up to 1,000 times as great ashistory'S background rate before humanbeings began proliferating. Worse, thatdie-off could be accelerating.Price of ExtinctionTHERE HAVE BEEN FIVE EXTINCTION WAVESin the planet's history-including thePermian extinction250million years ago,A 2004 studyestimated thatglobal warmingcould drive amillion speciesto extinctionby midcenturywhen an estimated 70% of all terrestrialanimals and 96% of all marine creaturesvanished, and, most recently, the Creta-ceous event 65 million years ago, whichended the reign of the dinosaurs. Thoughscientists have directly assessed the vi-ability of fewer than 3% of the world'sdescribed species, the sample polling ofanimal populations so far suggests that wemay have entered what will be the planet'ssixth great extinction wave. And this timethe cause isn't an errant asteroid or mega-volcanoes. It's us.Through our growing numbers, ourthirst for natural resources and, most ofall, climate change-which, by one reck-oning, could help carry off 20% to 30%of all species before the end of the cen-tury-we're shaping an Earth that willbe biologically impoverished. A 2008 as-sessment by the International Union forConservation of Nature found that nearlyIin 4 mammals worldwide was at risk forextinction, including endangered specieslike the famous Tasmanian devil. Over-fishing and acidification of the oceans arethreatening marine species as diverse asthe bluefin tuna and reef-forming corals."Just about everything is going down,"says Simon Stuart, head of the IUCN'sspecies-survival commission. "And when Ithink about the impact of climate change,it really scares me."Scary for conservationists, yes, but thequestion arises, Why should it matter tothe rest of us? After all, nearly all the spe-cies that were ever alive in the past aregone today. Evolution demands extinc-tion. When we're using the termextinc-tionto talk about the fate of the U.S. autoindustry, does it really mat.ter if we losespecies like the Holdridge's toad, the Yang-tze River dolphin and the golden toad, allof which have effectively disappeared inrecent years? What does the loss of a fewspecies among millions matter?For one thing, we're animals too, de-pendent on this planet like every otherform of life. The more species living inan ecosystem, the healthier and moreproductive it is, which matters for us-arecent study by the World Wildlife Fund(WWF) estimates the economic value ofDesert of '-ifeThe spiny desert of Madagascar'ssouth is brutally hot, but it's home toa unique population of animals. About46TIMEApril13, 2009SPECIAL REPORTIEXTINCTIONThe upside-down treeThe Dr. Seussian baobab is a symbol ofMadagascar, one the government hopes to use to attract ecotounststhe Amazon rain forest's eco-system services to be up