The Canopy Global 1000 ranks the world’s land protected areas by conservation value: how irreplaceable the species they hold are, how connected they are to other protected land, and how intact they are, weighted by size. Plant data is being added to the ranking, so both versions are shown side by side. Neither is the final word.
Without plants, Rainforests of the Atsinanana ranks 1 of 1,000. With plants it ranks 2. It stays in the top 300 either way, which is why it is here.
It contains Makira Natural Park, which Canopy scores on PACE. That score is for the park, not for this larger area.
7.55 million tonnes of carbon inside the boundary is irrecoverable: if it were lost, it could not be recovered by 2050.
4,534 km² of the area was forest in 2000, 95% of it. 194.7 km² of that forest was lost between 2001 and 2024, 4.3% of the 2000 cover.
Forest means at least 30% tree canopy in 2000. Loss counts any clearing, including fire and natural disturbance, not only deforestation.
Canopy’s PACE management score and its weekly satellite feeds have not been published for this area. Madagascar’s country profile carries its C-RISK score.
| WDPA id | 903062 |
|---|---|
| Canopy Global 1000 list | cg1k-22ffffd |
| Boundary and area source | WDPA-Jun2026 |
| Forest source | Hansen Global Forest Change v1.12 |
| Carbon source | Noon et al. (2022) |
| Canonical URL | https://canopyconservation.com/park/rainforests-of-the-atsinanana |
UNEP-WCMC and IUCN (2026), Protected Planet: The World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) [June 2026], Cambridge, UK: UNEP-WCMC and IUCN. Available at: www.protectedplanet.net.
Hansen, M. C. et al. (2013), High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Forest Cover Change, Science 342: 850-853. Data: Global Forest Change 2000 to 2024, v1.12, University of Maryland, CC BY 4.0.
Noon, M. L. et al. (2022), Mapping the irrecoverable carbon in Earth’s ecosystems, Nature Sustainability 5: 37-46, doi:10.1038/s41893-021-00803-6.
How the Canopy Global 1000 is built: the method is available to signed-in readers; ask for access.
If you manage or work with this protected area and something here is wrong or out of date, tell us. Every correction is reviewed.
Everything here is free to use. The one condition is attribution.
Canopy (2026). Rainforests of the Atsinanana, Madagascar: Canopy Global 1000 rank 1 without plants, 2 with plants. Canopy Conservation, cg1k-22ffffd. Retrieved from https://canopyconservation.com/park/rainforests-of-the-atsinanana
https://canopyconservation.com/park/rainforests-of-the-atsinanana
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Reuse, redistribute and build on this, commercially or not, as long as Canopy is credited and the licence is named.