The World Bank (wb) has approved its largest ever environmental grant for the Indian Ocean island of Madagascar. The funds, amounting to us $49 million, are meant to help the country in protecting its unique environment and native species.

Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island, has an array of flora and fauna. It, however, does not possess the financial wealth to address conservation concerns. The wb grant will be used to expand protected areas, establish conservation sites in forests and transfer forest management responsibilities to local communities. Conservationists say three-quarters of the estimated 200,000 plants and animal species found in Madagascar exist nowhere else in the world.

The island state broke away from eastern Africa about 120 million years ago and has developed its own rich variety of wildlife. But with more than 70 per cent of the island's 17 million people living on less than a dollar a day, the country has been unable to effectively protect its unique ecosystems.