Tropical Time Machine
Most science fiction writers have tried to imagine an alternate world where time has broken its banks and flows in a parallel stream down to the present. Madagascar is a tropical time machine that has done just that. When this island continent broke loose from Africa 100 million years ago, it evolved in isolation. So many common wild animals are missing, such as lions, hyenas, hoofed animals, rabbits, monkeys and poisonous snakes; those that are there are unique to Madagascar, like the 20 species of lemur.
Dr Alison Jolly has studied the lemurs of Madagascar for the last 20 years. But what she has to report is that this living museum of evolution is on the verge of destruction. Since man arrived, only 1,500 years ago, slash and burn agriculture, grass fires and hunting have destroyed 80 per cent of Madagascar's forest and threatened many species with extinction. It's a tragic example of Third World economics in conflict with nature.
Film editor MICHAEL CASEY
Horizon editor GRAHAM MASSEY Producer DAVID DUGAN