Week 13 – Reflections

August 15, 2019

I arrived home yesterday evening at around 7:45 pm. My first flight left Antananarivo yesterday at 1:00 am, so even though I was traveling for over 24 hours (with layovers), I did not ‘lose’ any time.

My dogs are thrilled that I am home, my parents brought one of them to the airport to meet me. We had to euthanize one of my dogs on Saturday, she was old and in Kidney failure. That was tough being away from home, and not even on the same continent when we said goodbye to our furry family member.

It is great to be home, but I definitely will miss the friends I made in Madagascar, and I will never forget the things I learned there. I learned first hand how conservation efforts can work in impoverished areas. People who are just trying to survive tend not to care about the well-being of a different species. However, employing those people to conserve the species creates a positive association with protecting the species and its habitat. The Madagascar Biodiversity Partnership, along with other organizations, such as The Arborday Foundation, put over $1,000 into the local economy in Kianjavato every month. In a country where most people live on less than $1 a day, that is a lot of money!

In the beginning, the motivation for conserving a species and their habitat might be money. But, as the local infrastructure develops and the quality of life for residence improves, people will start to care about the conservation of the species because they come to understand the importance of the species in the environment.

I learned how reforestation is done in deforested tropical rainforest locations. The key is that the forest species do not grow well in direct sunlight, as they have evolved to grow within the forest competing for sunlight. Planting fast-growing pioneer tree species that will provide shade for the forest species to grow is vital. Planting the pioneer species is also essential to prevent erosion of the soil, which is important for both the forest and the people living nearby.

I have learned how to live within another culture and experience it without disrupting or disrespecting it. I have learned some of the Malagasy language, which is difficult, as it does not have parallels to the English language.

I know from this experience that biology field research is what I am passionate about. I learned that through learning about elusive and endangered species, we can understand how to ensure best that they will not come to premature extinction.

I say early extinction because species, even though they seem as though they will always exist and have always existed, have a ‘lifespan’ in geologic time. Geologic time is the passage of history on a scale of millions and billions of years. A species will typically have a ‘lifespan’ of between 10,000,000 and 100,000,000 years. This is from the time the species is genetically different from it’s closest relative to be called a distinct species, to the point that the same genetic populations no longer exist. This could be due to the species having evolved, or it could be due to the species dying out.

There have been 5 mass extinction events in the history of the Earth, all of these were due to natural environmental changes (ice-ages, asteroids, etc.). We are currently witnessing the 6th mass extinction event, and it is happening 100 times faster than any of the previous 5. The current mass extinction is due to us, Homo Sapiens, both our direct influence through hunting, and our inadvertent influence of ecological change and global climate change.

I feel it is my responsibility to do what I can to learn about and ensure the continuation of endangered species that are dying out before there time. From this experience, I know how to go about working in impoverished areas, where the most endangered of endangered species are found.