By the late twentieth century, conservation scientists declared that time was “running out” for Madagascar as plant species were “disappearing 500 times faster than normal.” Plants deemed immortal in Malagasy culture, such as the famous Baobab Tree have, for the past few decades, teetered on the edge of extinction. Yet the contingencies of climate change have shifted conservation priorities so dramatically that, in recent years, botanical evolutionary concepts have been applied unequally in light of seemingly more pressing human-centric concerns. Without plants, though, humans will go extinct. Focusing on the nineteenth and twentieth century plant collections at the Missouri Botanical Garden and New York Botanical Garden, this project will (1) create a database of herbarium specimens collected in Madagascar, (2) use ArcGis to map the locations of these specimens, and (3) map plantations of luxury high-priced botanicals that have driven human-centric agriculture (vanilla, clove, and coffee). By incorporating Malagasy worldviews about the place of plants in their broader environment into this digital project, I question how ecological and evolutionary knowledge has been created and conveyed to both local and global conservation groups on an island rife with deforestation, political and social conflict—all contributing to its status as one of the top ten nations most vulnerable to climate change. Intersecting conservation law, critical archival studies, and the history of science, this project uses a variety of scientific specimens and data alongside archival material to question the colonial legacies of conservation science over Malagasy knowledge. 

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