Over the past 20 years, the Livingstone’s flying fox’s habitat, the Comoros, has lost 75% of its remaining forests, the fastest rate of any country in the world.
The Livingstone’s flying fox is threatened principally by the continuing degradation, fragmentation, and loss of its forest habitat. Over the last few decades, the Comoros have undergone a sustained, rapid deforestation, resulting in the loss of nearly all its native forests. Data quality on rates of habitat loss is poor, but best estimates are that during the past 20 years alone, the country has lost 75% of its remaining forests, the fastest rate of any country in the world.
This habitat change is caused by cutting of trees for fuelwood and construction, and by conversion of all but the steepest upland areas to agricultural use for subsistence agriculture and for export crops such as cloves.
• Image | © Andrew Thompson, All Rights Reserved
• Sources | (Doulton, et al., 2015; Malik, 2013; Sewall, Young, Trewhella, Rodríguez-Clark, & Granek, 2016; Sewall, et al., 2007, 2011)
