Tourist trail map of Berenty Reserve © Artwork by Elizabeth Cossons

Berenty lies at about South 25° 0' and East 46° 18', in the semi-arid Southern Domain of Madagascar.

A panel by Elizabeth Cossens gives the location of all the reserves of Berenty Estate, including the gallery forests of Berenty and Bealoka Reserves, the spiny forest tortoise reserve of Rapily, the octopus tree reserve of Anjampolo. All the reserve parcels, including the many strips of spiny forest and small sacred forests around tombs hold ringtailed lemurs and white sifaka, lepilemurs and mouselemurs.

A second panel shows the main area of Berenty Reserve proper, with its walking paths. Berenty Reserve's habitat zones can be recognized on an air photo and there are research maps which allow plotting of data such as lemur ranges.

Berenty, like the rest of Western and Southern Madagascar, has cold dry winters and hot wet summers. This determines the breeding seasons of all plants and animals, and the rhythm of people's crops. All Madagascar lemurs wean their young at the richest time of year in February and March, which for ringtails means that the mothers must give birth at the end of the dry season, when their body condition is lowest. The means indicate mean monthly rainfall, and the error bars the maximum. Minimum is 0 in all months except January and February, when it is 5 mm.

	Graph of seasonal rainfall. A. Jolly, data courtesy C. and A. Rakotomalala.

	Graph of Berenty Rainfall, Years Starting Oct 1. A. Jolly, data courtesy C. and A. Rakotomalala.

Madagascar has extremely erratic climate from year to year. The south sufferes from both El Niño droughts and cyclone flooding. The figure shows "Lemur-years", beginning Oct 1 at the start of the wet season, when infant ringtails are born. This groups each wet season together, with its succeeding dry season. Drought years such as 1991-92 can bring famine to the region. Fruit failure in the forest occurs in some wet years, which can mean a lost cohort of infants for the lemurs.