Satellite Imagery, Human Ecology, Anthropology, and Deforestation in Madagascar

Satellite images were used to determine rates of deforestation over the past 35 years and to identify current deforestation "hotspots" in the eastern rainforests and in the dry endemic forests of southern Madagascar. The analysis of population trends, topography, and coincident ethnographic research points to a number of different factors influencing deforestation in these regions. Each of these factors generates different problems for conservation and development, most of which are not being dealt with adequately.