Madagascar has dry, deciduous forests where clearance is an ongoing process. It is designated Global 200 ecoregion, one of the world’s most crucial regions for conservation by World Wide Fund for Nature. New research to find the exact reason behind forest loss in Madagascar for around 1,000 years points towards human intervention and activity.

A team of scientists from both UMass Amherst and MIT defies the belief of many theories offered in the past. They state that manmade factors led to the forest disaster instead of natural issues. To come to their conclusion, they studied a pair of stalagmites sourced from a cave in the northwest corner of the island.

According to MIT professor David McGee, use of stalagmites to investigate can offer precise and detailed records. The sudden occurrence of disaster could only be driven by human activity. What latest study holds is that the human settlers destroyed a large part of the forests in Madagascar. So they burnt down the forests in order to make room for their cattle.

In 2014, a pair of two meter long stalagmite samples was availed from Anjohibe Cave system in Madagascar and later was sent to MIT for studying, where an isotopic analysis was conducted. There was no evidence to prove any changes in the level of oxygen isotope in the stalagmites.

The result indicated that both, rate of rainfall and climate remained largely the same over time. The finding also surprised the researchers who expected climate change to come up as a reason for forest destruction.