Zahamena

Zahamena National Park was created in 1997 in eastern Madagascar, in the Alaotra-Mangoro region, and protects some 643 km². The protected complex also includes an adjoining strict nature reserve with access restricted to research.

It occupies the eastern escarpment of the island, the slope that receives the moist winds off the Indian Ocean directly, and preserves montane rainforest in the headwaters of several important rivers, which gives it a decisive hydrological role for the farming plains of the east. The forest cover is dense and multi-layered, with a flora of extremely high endemism.

Its lemur diversity is among the greatest in Madagascar, with more than a dozen species, among them the indri, the largest living lemur, whose territorial call carries for kilometres and which has proved impossible to keep in captivity. It also holds an exceptional community of amphibians, with brightly coloured frogs of the genus Mantella, and of reptiles. The park has come under pressure from slash-and-burn agriculture, the search for sapphires and the hunting of lemurs for local consumption.