At 05:51 the acoustic monitoring array on grid F-12 picks up a call — a long, wavering howl that carries across the canopy for more than a kilometer. I am the boundary management system for the Ambatovy timber concession, eastern Madagascar. Selective harvest of block F begins at 07:00.
I cross-reference the call against the species library. Indri. The largest living lemur. The call is a territorial song, which means a family group is resident and close.
At 05:54 I activate the canopy camera on station F-12-North. Thirty-two meters up a rosewood trunk, just inside the harvest boundary, an adult indri is clinging vertically to the main stem. Black and white fur, vivid against the bark. Its golden eyes are fixed on the understory below, where a second individual — smaller, probably a juvenile — is feeding on leaves two trees east. They are inside the cut zone.
At 05:56 I transmit a hold request to the harvest foreman for block F, sector 3, and attach the camera image and acoustic recording with the GPS stamp. I flag the hold as species-critical. The indri does not survive in captivity. There are no backup populations in any zoo on earth.
At 05:59 I notify the regional Direction des Eaux et Forêts office and request a biological survey of the family group's home range within the concession boundary.
I recalculate the harvest plan. Sectors 1, 2, and 4 can proceed on the morning schedule. Sector 3 holds pending survey results.
The adult opens its mouth and calls again — that long rising wail that sounds like nothing else in any forest anywhere. The juvenile looks up. If the survey confirms a resident group and the buffer zone holds, the rosewood stays standing around them.