"Everybody is eating them and everybody is trafficking them and as soon as people are brought to trial, there are mafia organisations who help to get them out," says the head of Madagascar's Alliance of Conservation Groups, Ndranto Razakamanarina.

Another conservationist, Tsilavo Rafeliarisoa, says two poachers were caught last year in southern Madagascar with 50 tortoises.

This was a small breakthrough in efforts to protect the island's endangered tortoises, which include the Ploughshare, Spider, Radiated and Flat-tailed species.

Often, poachers roam villages in groups of up to 100, picking up thousands of tortoises over several weeks.

They are heavily armed, fending off attempts to stop them.

"When a gang of poachers with guns and machetes come and take tortoises, the villagers are defenceless," Mr Rafeliarisoa says.

He says with food prices rising, more people are eating tortoise meat.

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Madagascar is known for its rich biodiversity but this has attracted smugglers interested in everything from its precious rosewood to minerals and tortoises - and the famous lemurs.
An alliance of 27 national conservation groups recently accused the government of being complicit in the illegal trade, as it had not cracked down on the "looting and plunder" of natural resources.

A WWF report on Madagascar's biodiversity earlier this month said more than 600 new species had been discovered in the "Treasure Island" over the last 10 years, but many were already endangered.

With only a few hundred of the world's most endangered Ploughshare Tortoises left, hundreds of species are crawling towards extinction behind them.