Whilst fires ravage the Amazon in South America, Madagascar's forest is facing a proportionally bigger problem, as a result of "slash and burn" farmers.

The deforestation means that the smallest relative of the human race, which lives in the Kirindy Forest in western Madagascar, is facing extinction.

With eyes like a bug, and weighing just 35 grams, the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur's habitat could be destroyed within three years according to Anselme Toto Volahy, a conservationist from the Durrell Wildlife Trust.

Image: The forest is home to different species of lemur

He hopes the climate-aware Pope, who is visiting the area this weekend, will highlight the problems on the island.

Mr Volahy said: "He should say that this forest is God's creation. He gave it to us and for our own benefit.


"If we don't manage it well, we will destroy ourselves."

The Kirindy Forest spans 368 square miles, but has been dramatically halved in size over the last two decades, with only blackened tree stumps and scorched baobab trunks remaining.

In the last two years alone, the Kirindy forest lost 4% of its area according to satellite data.

Mathias Markolf is a lemur specialist at the German Primate Centre in the forest, said he has not spotted the Madame Berthe's mouse lemur in two years.

Image: The forest has been destroyed over the last 20 years

He adds: "We do not find Berthe [lemur] in places that we used to find it before.

"It might go extinct in the next couple of years if deforestation continues."

As well as fires started by farmers, Madagascar is facing increasingly powerful storms and long droughts as result of global climate change.

The forest's demise was accelerated in 2016, after a harvest failed on the south of the island meaning farmers migrated to the west of the country towards Kirindy.

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Village elders claim that "unscrupulous businessmen" that are linked to local politicians pay money per hectare of forest that gets cleared.

Once the forest is cleared, maize farms appear in their place.

Madagascar's government say that they have made efforts to slow down the destruction, and have arrested several farmers - but campaigners say that is not good enough and that companies that buy the maize from the farms replacing the forest, should also be stopped.