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Protecting the Madagascar Fish-Eagle
Lily-Arison Rene de Roland says local communities are key to raptor conservation.
© Allan Hopkins
Biodiversity conservationist Lily-Arison Rene de Roland works with some of the rarest birds in the world. He’s the Madagascar program director for the Peregrine Fund, a non-profit conservation organization that protects imperiled birds of prey like the Madagascar Fish-Eagle. These large raptors only eat fish, which means they rely on the same diminishing wetlands and natural resources as some fishing communities. In this episode, Lily shares how community-centered conservation programs are helping to support Madagascar’s fishers and fish-eagles.
BirdNote®
Protecting the Madagascar Fish-Eagle
Written by Ariana Remmel
This is BirdNote.
Lily-Arison Rene de Roland is the Madagascar program director for the Peregrine Fund. He works with some of the rarest birds in the world, like the Madagascar Fish-Eagle.
[Madagascar Fish-Eagle]
Lily-Arison Rene de Roland: Madagascar Fish-Eagle is a critically endangered species. And at the beginning of the nineties when the Peregrine Fund began to work in Madagascar, the population number was very low.
These large raptors only eat fish, which means they rely on the same diminishing wetlands and natural resources as some fishing communities. For example:
Lily-Arison Rene de Roland: The fishermen used a wood canoe to use on the lake. And one wood canoe can be used only for two years. So every two years they must cut big trees to have a new canoe. And Madagascar Fish-Eagle uses a big trees for nesting.
So the Peregrine Fund invested in durable fiberglass canoes that last closer to 16 years — so each canoe saves roughly eight nesting trees. Lily says this is just one way that community-centered conservation can support Madagascar’s people and wildlife.
Lily-Arison Rene de Roland: Our objectives is to protect the Madagascar Fish-Eagle and also to protect the wetland for the future generations.
[Madagascar Fish-Eagle]
Learn more at our website, BirdNote.org. I’m Ariana Remmel.
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Senior Producer: Mark Bramhill
Producer: Sam Johnson
Managing Producer: Jazzi Johnson
Managing Producer: Ariana Remmel
Content Director: Jonese Franklin
Bird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Recorded by TK
BirdNote’s theme was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
© 2025 BirdNote December 2025
Narrator: Ariana Remmel
ID# RenedeRoland-01-2025-12-04 RenedeRoland-01
