Cost of vanilla incresed by 150 percent in one year - ice creams also to become costly

Madagascan vanilla prices have gone up by nearly 150 per cent in one year due to a poor harvest and this soaring cost of vanilla could have a direct bearing on the price of ice-cream - it will push up the price of ice cream. Other sources for vanilla are Mexico and Tahiti, but the flavor of Madagascan vanilla is the reason of why it is the first choice for ice cream.. Obviously, manufacturers have little choice but to buy it at an inflated price.
This has been reported in dailymail.co.uk dated 26 March 2016.

Apart from short supply in general, there are fears of further price rise due to a likely shortage of food-grade supplies. In the opinion of experts, when prices are high farmers are tempted to pick beans early. It affects the flavor which becomes less intense.
As one brand of ice cream has indicated - the cost of vanilla extract was £27 a liter in February and it has now gone up to £60. Another firm has said that Madagascan vanilla beans were sold for £144 for 1kg (just over 2lb) in January as against £59 at the start of 2015.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Tourism in Madagascar takes a beating - no visitors to watch the lemurs

Madagascar depends a lot on tourists to boost up its economy and the Lemurs' Park near Madagascar's capital is touted to be one of the city's top attractions, but it is not getting enough number of visitors. Right now, it is the high season and, only a handful of tourists are seen in the park to get a glimpse of the furry creatures unique to the tropical forests of this vast Indian Ocean Island as the ring-tailed lemurs scamper through nearby eucalyptus trees.
This has been reported in ibnlive.com dated 3 August 2015.

A section of tour operators blame this to the mass cancellations that followed a month-long Air Madagascar strike kept all internal flights grounded. Tourists used to arrive in large numbers during 2008, but there was political unrest since 2009 and that has affected tourism.
Of course, the authorities want to reverse the trend. It is promoting its rainforests, reefs and weird and wonderful plants and animals and are aiming for 1 million tourists by 2020. This would be five times higher than last year and more than double the 2008 peak, when 380,000 people visited the former French colony.
They want to showcase Madagascar as a ‘honeymoon’ destination like Mauritius and Seychelles.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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Scientists have cautioned – Earth is entering its sixth phase of mass extinction

A study conducted by the universities of Stanford, Princeton and Berkeley, has revealed that vertebrates were disappearing at a rate 114 times faster than normal. There are apprehensions that the Earth is entering its sixth phase of mass extinctions – and humans could be the first casualty.
The last such event occurred 65 million years ago, when dinosaurs were wiped out – probably as a result of a large meteor hitting the Earth as reported in bbc.com dated 19 June 2015.

One of the authors of the study has indicated that humans are now entering the sixth great mass extinction event and, unless it is checked life would take many millions of years to recover and the human would possibly disappear early on. The scientists arrived at the conclusion by examining historic rates of extinction for vertebrates - animals with backbones - by assessing fossil records. They found that the current extinction rate was more than 100 times higher than in periods when Earth was not going through a mass extinction event.
Since 1900, the report says, more than 400 more vertebrates had disappeared. The worry is that such a loss would normally be seen over a period of up to 10,000 years – but, it has happened within 115 years!!
This can be attributed to known causes like climate change, pollution and deforestation. The study also shows that given the knock-on effect of ecosystems being destroyed, the benefits of nature like pollination by bees could be lost within three human generations.
It can be said that we are sawing off the limb that we are sitting on. In the opinion of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), at least 50 species of animals are inching towards extinction every year. Also, nearly 41% of all amphibians and 25% of mammals are threatened with extinction.
As an example - 94% of all lemurs are under threat and more than a fifth of all lemur species are classed as "critically endangered". Their habitat in Madagascar has been wiped out by illegal logging and they are also regularly hunted for their meat.
(Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org)

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