FSML: Improvement in the Ranomafana National Park Research Station in Madagascar

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Annual use of the Ranomafana National Park Research Station (RNPRS) in Madagascar has grown from 58 to 213 international scientists in the past five years. However, the facilities are too small for these usage levels, provide inadequate laboratory facilities for modern scientific research techniques, and have no direct communication with the international community. This project will improve the ability of the research station to meet the present and future needs of scientists who study this Madagascar rain forest. The project will upgrade the existing facilities. It will provide a dining and lecture hall, a gatehouse, a generator shed, a bridge to research areas, as well as various basic equipment. This proposed upgrade is the result of a 2-year planning process.Ranomafana National Park Research Station is located in Ranomafana National Park (RNP), which covers 43,500 ha. of rain forest in southeast Madagascar. The station is operated by the Institute for the Conservation of Tropical Environments (ICTE), affiliated with the State University of New York at Stoney Brook. Over 125 faculty-level researchers and over twice that number of students, most from US universities, have conducted research at RNP since the station was built in 1989. The RNPrS is the most important center for rain forest research and training in Madagascar and the only research station with more than one permanent building.Madagascar is one of the world's top ten biodiversity hot spots, containing a disproportionately high number of the world's plant and animal species for its area (Myers 1986, Mittermeier 1988). Most of Madagascar's species are endemic because the island has been separated from the mainland for well over a hundred million years and species have evolved in isolation (Krause, Hartman, and Wells 1997). The rain forest habitat of Madagascar is severely threatened by human activities (logging, slash and burn agriculture, hunting) resulting in the disappearance of 79% of the original rain forest habitat. High species diversity, long isolation, high endemicity, and severe threat make Madagascar rain forests a focus of intense scientific and conservation interest. For these same reasons, the rain forest at RNP serves as an excellent comparison to some of the better-studied rain forest sited in the Neotropics, Africa, and Asia.