On a cloudless morning in September, sunlight poured through the canopy of a banyan tree near the banks of the Onilahy River, which runs from southwest Madagascar to the Indian Ocean. The tree grew on the edge of a small karst cliff. Its roots spilled over the side like melting candle wax.

I scrambled up the cliff for a better view of the canopy, when I saw something staring back at me: a lemur. It had scruffy white fur, a black face with bug-eyes, and a tail that was at least the length of its body. This wasn’t just any lemur; it was a Verreaux’s sifaka: a critically endangered species that I’ve spent much of my life longing to see.

This story is part of a series

This fall, Vox is publishing a three-part series on conservation in Madagascar, supported by the BAND Foundation. This story is part 2.

Madagascar, an island nation east of continental Africa, is the only place on Earth where lemurs exist. There are more than 100 lemur species, and nearly all of them are at risk of extinction, including the sifaka. Their foe is deforestation; all lemurs depend on trees for food and shelter, and half or more of the country’s forests are now gone.

In Madagascar, unlike in many other forested nations, the bulk of deforestation isn’t caused by the industrial-scale farming and cattle ranching that often enriches big corporations. Forests here are primarily felled by individual families who cut trees to grow crops or collect cooking fuel. That’s how many people feed themselves and make money. They often have few other options; Madagascar ranks among the top five poorest countries in the world, and people here have few economic opportunities that don’t rely on exploitation.

Against this dim reality, the lemur before me represented something hopeful. The only reason it was here was that this tree was still standing. And this tree was still standing, because nearby villages have worked hard against tough odds to protect the forest they all share.

Working alongside the World Wildlife Fund, one of the world’s largest environmental organizations, those villages created new economic opportunities for themselves that don’t destroy the forest. Together, they demonstrate a crucial element of what makes conservation work in the poorest parts of the world: first, meeting the needs of people, and then, stepping out of the way to let them take charge.

The lemur I saw lives in the Onilahy River basin of southwest Madagascar, not far from the coast and the largest city in the region, called Toliara. It’s a strange landscape — a collision of desert and forest, where spiny shrubs grow nearby tall trees. The south of Madagascar is arid, yet there’s an abundance of water here that flows from the river and a series of natural springs.

On a warm morning towards the end of winter in the Southern Hemisphere, I traveled from Toliara to a small village near the river called Maroamalo. The road was mostly dirt and spotted with crater-sized potholes, which — along with several goat-related traffic jams — turned a 15-mile trip into a three-hour, butt-bruising adventure.

Maroamalo is one of several communities helping protect the lemur-filled forests of the Onilahy River basin. Working alongside staff from WWF, they manage a protected area called Amoron’i Onilahy. The park is only around 250,000 acres — making it a little larger than New York City — yet it envelops a wide variety of ecosystems, from wetlands to spiny thickets and a huge number of rare species, including eight kinds of primates.

In some ways, Amoron’i Onilahy is Madagascar in miniature. The island nation is packed full of different habitat types, which is one reason why it has a higher proportion of endemic species than any other place on Earth.

Protected areas — which typically restrict certain activities that degrade ecosystems and endanger biodiversity — have a mixed record of success. This is especially true in Madagascar. Studies have found that people clear trees even within parts of the country........

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