Conservation status of vascular plant species from the QMM / Rio Tinto mining area at Mandena, Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) region,southeast Madagascar

Abstract

A botanical inventory of the Mandena littoral forest, completed in 1991 as part of an environmental impact assessment study for a titanium oxide mining project being developed by QMM / Rio Tinto in the Tolagnaro (Fort Dauphin) region of southeastern Madagascar, identified 29 plant taxa as priorities for conservation, including 16 known only from the proposed mining path (Priority 1) and 13 restricted to the exploration zone (Priority 2). A re - evaluation in 2001 added 11 taxa from Mandena (the first of three sites targeted for mining, to be followed later by Petriky and then Sainte Luce) and removed 13 others, leaving a total of 27 taxa, five classified as Priority 1 and 22 as Priority 2. Using currently available data, we have removed four additional taxa from the list (three because populations were found outside the Tolagnaro area and one because it’s earlier inclusion on the list had been in error) and transferred four others from Priority 1 to Priority 2 as populations had been located within one or more of the newly - established conservation zones at Sainte Luce (747 ha), Mandena (230 ha) and Petriky (125 ha). Of the 15 currently recognized priority taxa present at Mandena, only two (an undescribed species in each of the genera Canthium and Pseudocatha) appear to be endemic there, but all remain a focus of QMM’s environment, conservation and restoration activities. A total of 15 Mandena taxa are listed as threatened on the 2008 IUCN Red List (3 Critically Endangered, 7 Endangered, and 5 Vulnerable), most of which must be regarded as important for conservation; only three of these taxa also appear on the priority list, and none of the 12 remaining priority taxa from Mandena have been assessed for the Red List, underscoring the urgent need to expand evaluation to encompass the entire Malagasy flora and in particular range - restricted taxa.