* Any views expressed in this video are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
Unknown Fields - Art Direction and Trip Concept (unknownfieldsdivision.com)
Toby Smith - Videography and Colour (tobysmith.com)
In times past an anarchist community of pirates called Madagascar home. It was an island beyond the law and off the map, a place of rogues, booty and bounties. These were outlaws moored on a marooned ecosystem. Set adrift 88 million years ago, the island is a castaway in the Indian Ocean, inhabited by a band of ecological stowaways. In this splendid isolation it has evolved into an unparalleled wonderland of the weird and unique, diverse and unbelievable.
A political coup in 2009 left the country adrift once more – isolated from the international community, deprived of foreign aid and conservation funding. One of the planet’s most precious ecological treasures is home to one of its poorest nations and it raises difficult and complex questions about the relationship between necessity and luxury. Amidst political uncertainty, the island’s fragile and unique ecology is being smuggled out illegally, boat by boat, gem by gem.
Additional Credits
Unknown Fields - Art Direction and Trip Concept
Toby Smith - Videography and Colour
Samantha Lee - Editor and Motion Graphics
Artemis Doupa - Motion Graphics
Zhan Wang - Motion Graphics
Mond Qu - Motion Graphics
