Lake Alaotra Wetlands

Lake Alaotra and its surrounding wetlands cover about 7,200 square kilometres on the northern central plateau of Madagascar, in the Alaotra-Mangoro Region. The basin holds shallow freshwater lakes and marshes with open water, reedbeds, marshes and rice paddies, and it forms the centre of the island's most important rice-growing region. The wetland system is a Ramsar wetland of international importance, designated in 2003. The reedbeds are the sole habitat of the Alaotra gentle lemur, now limited to about 220 square kilometres, and the lake has been an important refuge for waterbirds such as Meller's duck, while the Alaotra grebe was declared extinct in 2010. Erosion from cleared hill slopes has silted the lake until it is only about 60 centimetres deep in the dry season, and farmers burn the reedbeds to make room for more rice fields.