Threats & Protections

The largest threat to the Antanosy Day Gecko is deforestation, logging, and the illegal exportation of Screw Plant roots and wood. The Pandanus aka Screw Plant is slow to regrow, leaving the geckos without a safe habitat from the constant clearing of this specific plant due to illegal deforestation (Wikipedia, n.d.). Even though most of the Pandanus is located in safe and protected areas illegal deforestation still takes place and, “At least one million logs were illegally exported from Madagascar during March 2010 and March 2015 — that’s more than 150,000 metric tons-worth of logs,” (Gaworecki, 2017). The governance of protected areas has been so disregarded that in recent years hundreds of thousands of trees have been illegally harvested and transported to Europe, the United States, and Asia. This particular type of wood that is stripped from the Pandanus is used to make musical instruments and high-end furniture. In 2010 a government decree was ordered that no cutting or transporting of precious wood could take place without the proper permit at any port or airstrip and the exporters have to prove that the exported wood is not directly or indirectly harming a species,  (Gaworecki, 2017).  

The Antanosy Day Geckos are not in danger of pet trade - one of the major causes of declining species populations of endangered species around the world - because they can only survive on a certain plant in a certain area meaning they are island endemic, (IUCN, n.d.). The yearly intake of money from illegal logging is unclear due to the secrecy of the business, so we cannot know for sure how much money is made from destroying this species’s habitat. Another detrimental cause of the near extinction of the Antanosy Day Gecko is the expansion and urbanization into one of the Antanosy Day gecko’s habitats which poses an increasing risk due to Madagascar becoming a “growing interest in the country as a tourist destination,” (Wikipedia, n.d.).