"We can no longer sit back and allow our forests to go up in flames," Ravalomanana told delegates at the fifth World Parks Congress under way in the eastern port city of Durban.

"We have to adapt a strategy to conserve our forest heritage and marine resources," he told the congress, a once-a-decade event focusing on how to manage and safeguard protected areas.

Ravalomanana said the number of protected sites on Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island which separated from the African mainland some 165 million years ago, will be increased from the current three percent to 10 percent of the territory over the next five years.

"Madagascar is filled with natural riches and unique species ... but we have nine million hectares of forests endangered by rice growing and the use of firewood."

The Indian Ocean island, which is estimated to have lost 80 percent of its orginal forest cover, has an existing network of 1.7 million hectaresmillion acres) of protected areas, and plans to expand that more than threefold.

"I would like to state the commitment today to raise that coverage to six million hectares within the next five years," Ravalomanana said.

He said the environment ministry in impoverished Madagascar has been ordered to draw up a plan of action to implement the 10 percent goal.

Humans settled in Madagascar only about 1,500 years ago, and the island's plants and animals developed in pristine isolation, with more than 10,000 species found nowhere else in the world.

It is home to half of the world's chameleons, including the dwarf chameleon that is only about three centimetres (a little over an inch) long and one of the world's smallest vertebrate. Of the country's 189 amphibians, all but one or two occur only in Madagascar.

The island is well known for its 51 different kinds of lemur, a mostly tree-dwelling mammal. Its species include the tiny pygmy mouse lemur discovered in 1985 and the most unusual aye-aye which has huge ears, shaggy fur and a very thin middle finger on each hand.

Its bird species are rapidly declining, with no fewer than four critically endangered, including the Madagascar serpent eagle and the Madagascar fish eagle.

TERRA.WIRE