TIME April 13 2009 43 HERE T ARE AT LEAST 8 MILLION unique species of life on the planet if not far more and you could be forgiven for believing that all of them can be found in Andasibe Walking through this rain forest in Madagascar is like stepping into the library of life Sunlight seeps through the silky fringes of the Ravenea louvelii an endangered palm found like so much else on this African island nowhere else Leaftailed geckos cling to the trees cloaked in green A fat Parson s chameleon lies lazily on abranch beady eyes scanning for dinner But the animal I most hoped to find I don t see at first I hear it though a sustained groan that electrifies the forest quiet My Malagasy guide Marie Razafindrasolo finds the source of the sound perched on a branch It is the black and white indri largest of the lemurs a type of small An Island Apart Madagascar split from India 80 million to IDa million years ago All that time in virtual isolation meant that wildlife on the island followed its own evolutionary path This helped produce unique species like thefossa a catlike carnivore with the agility of a squirrel and the attitude of a wolverine 44 SPECIAL REPORT CLOCKWISE FROM S JANSSEN MINDEN TOP LEFT FRANS INGO ARNDT MINDEN LANTING PIOTR PETE NASKRECKI OXFORD MINDEN PETE DANTE OXFORD MINDEN FEN OLIO PHOTO CENTER ALBERT RESEARCHERS LLEAL MINDEN ZSSD MINDEN DANIEL HEUCLIN PHOTO RESEARCHERS I EXTINCTION SPECIAL REPORT I EXTINCTION A 2004 study estimated that global warming could drive a million species to extinction by midcentury Dead forests Madagascar has zost more than 80 of itsforests chiefly to the slash and burn style of ricefarming know as tavy which exhausts the soil as it destroys habitats primate found only in Madagascar The cry is known as a spacing call a warning to other indris to keep their distance to prevent competition for food But there s not much risk of interlopers The species like many other lemurs like many other animals in Madagascar like so much oflife on Earth is endangered and dwindling fast Madagascar which separated from India 80 million to 100 million years ago before eventually settling off the southeastern coast of Africa is in many ways an Earth apart All that time in geographic isolation made Madagascar a Darwinian playground its animals and plants evolving into forms utterly original They include species as strange looking as the pygmy mouse lemur a chirping palmsize mammal that may be the smallest primate on the planet and as haunting as the carnivorous fossa a catlike animal about 30 in long Some 90 of the island s plants and about 70 of its animals are endemic meaning that they are found only in Madagascar But what makes life on the island unique also makes it uniquely vulnerable If we lose these animals on Madagascar they re gone forever says Russell Mittermeier president of the wildlife group Conservation International CI That loss seems likelier than ever because the animals are under threat as never before Once lushly forested Madagascar has seen more than 80 of its original vegetation cut down or burned since humans arrived at least 1 500 years ago fragmenting habitats and leaving animals effectively homeless Unchecked hunting wiped out a number of large species and today 46 mining logging and energy exploration threaten those that remain You have an area the size of New Jersey in Madagascar that is still under forest and all this incredible diversity is crammed into it says Mittermeier an American who has been traveling to the country for more than 25 years We re very concerned Madagascar is a conservation hot spot a term for a region that is very biodiverse and particularly threatened and while that makes the island special it is hardly alone Conservationists estimate that extinctions worldwide are occurring at a pace that is up to 1 000 times as great as history S background rate before human beings began proliferating Worse that die off could be accelerating Price of Extinction THERE HAVE BEEN FIVE EXTINCTION WAVES in the planet s history including the Permian extinction 250 million years ago Desert of ife The spiny desert of Madagascar s south is brutally hot but it s home to a unique population of animals About when an estimated 70 of all terrestrial animals and 96 of all marine creatures vanished and most recently the Cretaceous event 65 million years ago which ended the reign of the dinosaurs Though scientists have directly assessed the viability of fewer than 3 of the world s described species the sample polling of animal populations so far suggests that we may have entered what will be the planet s sixth great extinction wave And this time the cause isn t an errant asteroid or megavolcanoes It s us Through our growing numbers our thirst for natural resources and most of all climate change which by one reckoning could help carry off 20 to 30 of all species before the end of the century we re shaping an Earth that will be biologically impoverished A 2008 assessment by the International Union for Conservation of Nature found that nearly I in 4 mammals worldwide was at risk for extinction including endangered species like the famous Tasmanian devil Overfishing and acidification of the oceans are threatening marine species as diverse as the bluefin tuna and reef forming corals Just about everything is going down says Simon Stuart head of the IUCN s species survival commission And when I think about the impact of climate change it really scares me Scary for conservationists yes but the question arises Why should it matter to the rest of us After all nearly all the species that were ever alive in the past are gone today Evolution demands extinction When we re using the term extinction to talk about the fate of the U S auto industry does it really mat ter if we lose species like the Holdridge s toad the Yangtze River dolphin and the golden toad all of which have effectively disappeared in recent years What does the loss of a few species among millions matter For one thing we re animals too dependent on this planet like every other form of life The more species living in an ecosystem the healthier and more productive it is which matters for us a recent study by the World Wildlife Fund WWF estimates the economic value of TIME April 13 2009 SPECIAL REPORT I EXTINCTION director of the climate energy the Amazon rain forest s ecoand air program of the Center system services to be up to roo for Biological Diversity CBD per hectare about 2 2 acres But