Antananarivo - Madagascar's Environment Minister Harison Randriarimanana announced Thursday a review of the state's lenient attitude towards farmers who start bush fires, a key factor in the Indian Ocean island's alarming deforestation rates.
Bush fires, often started by farmers when clearing land for grazing, consume over half a million hectares of land each year. Entire villages often go up in smoke in the infernos.
Perpetrators, meanwhile, face a mere 200 ariary (11 cents US) in fines.
Besides tougher sanctions Randriarimanana outlined plans to educate the country's 17,500 mayors about the environmental impact of bush fires.
Madagascar's tropical forests, famed for their biodiversity, have shrunk over the past four decades as farmers and businesses clear land for agriculture and industry.
It is estimated that Madagascar lost about 12 million hectares of forest between 1960 and 2000, approximately half its forest cover.
The World Bank is funding a government action plan to slow deforestation.
If each of Madagascar's 20 million citizens planted 10 trees, some 100,000 hectares of land could be reforested, fulfilling 80 per cent of the state's annual reforestation target, Randriarimanana said.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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