Madagascar: On the trail of endangered lemurs The communication call of the indri is one of the unforgettable sounds of nature. Perhaps the woman wailing for her demon lover in Coleridge's Kubla Khan would sound like this - certainly nothing else on Earth does. The indri opens its mouth, and heedless of the terror and wonder it is about to engender in the human breast, issues a siren-like howl that can carry for up to two miles through the tree canopy. We first heard it in a private reserve within the Anjozorobe Forest, a protected corridor of primary and secondary rainforest a couple of hours' drive north of Tana. So close were we to the hollering indri that we saw the delicate pink of their mouths and gums as they let rip. Later, as night fell, the mouse lemurs that lived in the thatch of our lodge came out one by one - each a pair of big eyes on a furry stem of a body - and parachuted in to the undergrowth along thin, bending branches, like firemen down a pole. The mouse and the indri are the little and large of the genus Lemur, labelled prosimians - primitive monkeys - by biologists. Lemurs probably arrived from mainland Africa, perhaps on floating vegetation, after Madagascar had broken away in the geological tumult that produced the Earth's continental land masses. In the words of David Attenborough, the island of Madagascar became "an evolutionary cauldron, producing increasingly extreme forms of life." The Lemur genus diversified to such an astonishing and imaginative degree that some species were until recently thought to be other animals entirely, while new ones are still being discovered. They are found all over Madagascar, many species confined to discrete terrains and climatic zones, all compellingly unique. Ranging from the frankly bizarre aye-aye, with its bony Dickensian fingers, to the comical sifaka, which moonwalks rather like Michael Jackson, all the species are under threat to greater or lesser extents. Travelling north, south and then east from Tana, we understood why. The varied landscapes of Madagascar are wonderfully dramatic - the baobab trees of the west, which look like cigars surmounted by fright wigs, the "spiny forest" adapted to the poor soil and low rainfall of the south. But all face degradation. In the east, where lowland and montane rainforest provides the habitat for several lemur species, many hills now resemble scalps with alopecia, and in some cases the deforestation has resulted in landslips that leave scars of red earth on the landscape. Much of the native flora has been replaced by the dreaded eucalyptus, in and below which nothing of value grows. There are several villains, including logging interests. The giant rosewoods of the Masoala peninsula, in the north-east, are being felled "illegally" and sold to the Chinese at a rate of knots, as my guide had witnessed two months previously - "I wanted to cry," he said. But the biggest problem is the traditional practice of tavy - slash-and-burn agriculture. As they have done for thousands of years, the rural poor hack down the rainforest and burn it off, planting their staples of rice and manioc in its place. In the afternoons, when the wind gets up, smoke subsumes the surrounding landscape and even blows across the capital city, casting a strange aquarium light over the coloured rooftops. Madagascar's future is going up in smoke. The president-before-last, Marc Ravalomanana, recognised this and instituted an ambitious conservation programme aimed at tripling protected areas and providing alternatives to slash-and-burn. But he was ousted in a coup in 2009 and since then commitment to the island's precious and fragile biodiversity seems to have disappeared down the river, along with the rosewood logs. Madagascar's continuing unstable political situation is cited as a reason not to go there, but that is nonsense. There is no conceivable danger, or even inconvenience, posed to foreign tourists. The infrastructure is in place - excellent safari lodges and city hotels, impressive, French-influenced food, informed and impassioned guides - and the place is crying out for us. Animal-loving, camera-toting vazahas (foreigners) represent a vital strand of a sustainable future. The only sign I saw of unrest were the two army trucks parked outside Tana's Belle Époque railway station (now a shopping arcade) at the end of the Avenue de l'Indépendance. Ignoring the army presence, Tana's beau monde walks past the trucks to reach the restored Café de la Gare for crêpes and cocktails. The soldiers playing cards in the trucks are there apparently to deter demonstrations - a shame that such young men remain idle when they could be improving the lives of their country's impoverished population. The extent of that poverty becomes clear as you travel around. Many villages have no electricity or running water, roads are poor, schools are pitifully equipped. Among the fishing-and-farming communities of Lake Ampitabe on the east coast, the adult literacy rate is just 40 per cent and villagers are burning the forests to plant rice and crops because they know no better. The local school, at Ampahantany, battles valiantly to educate the children for a more sustainable future. Help from the government? The white-coated headmaster, who lives in a thatched hut near the two classrooms, shook his head sadly. No help. He is paid from handouts by parents. Books are falling apart, latrines have no water, children have little but scabies. But life in Madagascar is also vibrant and cheerful, with sudden splashes of colour and drama - a riverbank patched with drying washing; a crocodile of blue-smocked schoolchildren on their way to classes vertes, open-air lessons in planting trees and vegetables; the lavender blue of the jacaranda, a spectral colour that seems to hover in the branches; the white of an egret against the green of a rice field, as elegant as a single stroke of calligraphy. At the end of each journey comes the anticipation of seeing yet another extraordinary creature that exists nowhere but here. Arriving near Andasibe, home of the indri, we spent the first evening on a night walk along the road bordering the park, picking out by torchlight an eastern dwarf lemur and some eastern woollies - cuddly sleepyheads in National Health specs - and finding curled on branches tiny chameleons as exquisite as semi-precious brooches. One day, we took a trip to what may be the future. Vakona Island, popularly known as Lemur Island, is actually three islands occupying some 20 acres in a lake and providing sanctuary for lemurs rescued from the dire fate of being pets. Though the lemurs live freely here, the flora, mostly eucalyptus, is incapable of supporting them so they are fed by keepers, and treated to snacks by tourists. The tourists are punted across in canoes - and set upon by the tame lemurs, which have the prosimian equivalent of dollar signs in their eyes (banana signs, perhaps, like fruit-machine symbols). The star of the show was undoubtedly a solitary diadem sifaka, which over and over again demonstrated for the cameras her slow-motion, bounding gait. It was comical but disturbing, for as soon as the focus moved away from her she looked confused and bereft. Will this be the only way to view lemurs in 50 years' time - in ersatz rainforest, armed with titbits? It was this prospect that lent the encounter with the indri - a family in their natural habitat - such poignancy. The four of them bundled and dawdled about for 20 minutes above our heads until the troupe of humans observing them had grown to 18. We engaged in some rough-and-tumble behaviour ourselves - nudging one another out of the way to get better views - before lapsing into stillness, with nothing left to do but wonder. The indri, for their part, ignored us. They are used to seeing humans and they behaved as if we didn't exist. Which, for the lemur, as for much of the world's wildlife, would be the best thing. Nigel Richardson travelled with Aardvark Safaris (01980 849160; aardvarksafaris.co.uk). A two-week trip, including rainforest lodges and wildlife viewing, a homestay in a village and three nights on the island of Sainte Marie, costs from £3,815 per person, sharing. The price includes international flights via Paris, internal flights, transfers, English-speaking guide, half-board accommodation and activities. What to read: Madagascar: the Bradt Travel Guide (£16.99); Mammals of Madagascar by Nick Garbutt (A & C Black, £24.99).