Offset Life: Lemur Health in Landscapes of Extraction

In 2004, the mining industry introduced its Business and Biodiversity Offsetting Programme as a means of neutralising the harmful impacts of mining on fragile habitats, such as Madagascar’s primary forests. Committing to “no net loss” and potential “net gain” of biodiversity, the offsetting programme influences perceptions of the footprint of the Ambatovy mine. By carefully protecting and monitoring species within its biodiversity offset, Ambatovy staff aims to revise the trajectory of environmental change, from a vision of ruined terrain to one of bioabundance. However, the conceptual division of the landscape into risky and restorative spaces downplays the long-term health effects of forest fragmentation and erosion on lemurs, one family of critically endangered species. The chapter compares perceptions of Madagascar’s future habitats as speculated in biodiversity offsetting discourse and as inferred by recent scientific studies of lemur health.