Towards an inclusive nature conservation initiative: Preliminary assessment of stakeholders’ representations about the Makay region, Madagascar (original) (raw)
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Ongoing fragmentation between social groups on the appropriate targets and relevant actors for nature conservation signals the need for further advancements in theorizing about the human–nature interaction. Through a focus on the complexity of social thought and confrontations between social groups, the theory of social representations may provide a useful addition to conventional approaches. However, environmental issues have so far not been among the primary topics studied by social representation scholars. This article sets out to fill this gap. After an introduction to the theory, we report on three case studies that illustrate the use of this theory in the context of natural resource management. These studies show how groups negotiate meanings, intentions, and action related to complex issues such as wolf management, invasive species, and conflicts over protected forests, landscapes, and national parks. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of the approach and suggest future challenges and opportunities.
A framework for understanding community resident perceptions of Masoala National Park, Madagascar
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Protected areas (PAs) represent a central strategy in biodiversity conservation worldwide. Yet many PAs are weakened by people-PA conflicts resulting from the separation of natural resource protection from human considerations. Research at Masoala National Park in Madagascar focused on the following questions: (1) What are the factors that influence residents' perceptions of the Park and restrictions on use of natural resources in the Park area? (2) How do residents of communities on the periphery of the Park perceive and interact with Park staff, and what factors influence interactions and perceptions? A multi-method qualitative research approach was taken, including individual and focus group interviews, participant observation, archival research, and an environmental education and communication workshop. From July to December 2001, 119 semistructured individual and group interviews were conducted with a total of 181 Masoala National Park staff, employees of non-governmental conservation organizations and community residents, focusing on two villages on the periphery of Masoala National Park. Factors found to influence the perceptions of the Park held by residents living in the Park periphery included the history of Park management, the degree of awareness of Park existence, types of interactions with Park staff and actual or potential benefits received from the Park. Inconsistency in past and present Park management goals has led to community confusion regarding the Park programme. Residents were largely aware of the Park's existence but were unfamiliar with its goals. Pressures on Park natural resources came from a variety of sources and occurred across a range of spatial and temporal scales, some of which were outside the control of Park managers. A conceptual framework represented relations between Park staff and community residents. Understanding people-PA interactions and perceptions can help guide future PA management strategies to increase conservation effectiveness, through efforts such as environmental education and communication programmes.
Routledge eBooks, 2021
Protected areas are often surrounded by impoverished communities. Biodiversity must be conserved while enabling community members' livelihoods. Benefit-sharing has been promoted as a means of fostering positive relationships between protected areas and local people, but views differ regarding which benefits have positive results; and which are most valued by communities themselves. This research investigates the attitudes of Khanyayo village towards Mkhambathi Nature Reserve on the Wild Coast of South Africa. A pragmatic, multi-method comparative qualitative approach was followed. Participants were local community members and key staff at Mkhambathi, who work with the community. Individual interviews, focus group interviews and an adapted nominal grouping technique were used, which aided triangulation. Results indicated a range of significant benefits and losses. Tangibles included access to natural resources, employment, infrastructure and training. More intangibles emerged though, such as enjoyment of reserve, involvement in the reserve, communication and environmental education. Losses predominantly related to prohibited or restricted access to natural resources. The comparison between the two participant groups yielded interesting insights. Knowing which benefits are most important to the community and aligning the perceptions of the people and the park staff could improve the relationship as well as enhance successful benefit-sharing.
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Conservation practice requires an understanding of complex social-ecological processes of a system and the different meanings and values that people attach to them. Mental models research offers a suite of methods that can be used to reveal these understandings and how they might affect conservation outcomes. Mental models are representations in people's minds of how parts of the world work. We seek to demonstrate their value to conservation and assist practitioners and researchers in navigating the choices of methods available to elicit them. We begin by explaining some of the dominant applications of mental models in conservation: revealing individual assumptions about a system, developing a stakeholder-based model of the system, and creating a shared pathway to conservation. We then provide a framework to "walk through" the stepwise decisions in mental models research, with a focus on diagrambased methods. Finally, we discuss some of the limitations of mental models research and application that are important to consider. This work extends the use of mental models research in improving our ability to understand social-ecological systems, creating a powerful set of tools to inform and shape conservation initiatives.
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Cultural Perspectives on Conservation in the Madagascar Biodiversity Hotspot
"High levels of endemic biodiversity, habitat loss and degradation have made Madagascar one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots. While protected areas are a sensible approach to preserving valuable ecosystems and their services, they are a conservation concept that often struggle to fully consider the local social and cultural characteristics of the areas where they are established. Protected areas are frequently inhabited by local people who directly depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, and whose beliefs and customary tenure systems have often become closely intertwined with the land over long periods. The conservation movement in Madagascar has made considerable efforts to develop viable models for conservation incorporating local communities, for example through community- based natural resource management models. However, a closer examination of the implementation of these models illustrates a cultural clash between the different ways of life, ambitions and world views of local recipients and external implementers. Increased consideration of local people’s values and cultural practices combined with integrative scientific understandings of conservation from both natural and social science could lead to an improvement of conservation policies and implementation in terms of both conservation effectiveness and socio-economic equity. We conclude by presenting suggestions for a basis from which actions can be taken to improve the coherence between forest conservation policies and culture. More participatory policy development and implementation processes, improved dialogue, recognition of customary tenure systems, and more comprehensive and timely livelihood solutions should lead to more balanced forest conservation strategies to ensure that ecosystem services can be sustainably provided to both the local and global community."
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Ateliers d'Anthropologie, 2023
Conservation and development projects that prescribe the participation of local stakeholders in decision-making around the sustainable management of their own ecosystems have become commonplace in Madagascar in recent decades, as have scholarly critiques questioning the likelihood that such "community-based conservation" (CBC) efforts can achieve the win-win scenarios they purport to offer Malagasy communities and ecosystems. This article, co-authored by differently positioned collaborators, documents the history of exchanges that have proven fundamental to the development and maintenance of one CBC project in northern Madagascar, focusing especially on the value of ongoing interpersonal relations among community members and external partners.
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Madagascar, well known for its unique biodiversity and culture, has been a major focus for the international conservation movement since the mid 1980’s. The islands terrestrial biodiversity exhibits high levels of endemism and is under anthropogenic pressure through activities such as forest clearance, logging and hunting. This situation led in the 1990’s to the promotion of participatory forestry policies, where local communities were ‘empowered’ to manage their own forest resources sustainably, these policies known as GELOSE and GCF were rolled out across many regions of the country. Subsequently in 2003 President Ravalomanana made a declaration of his governments’ intention to triple the coverage of Madagascar’s protected areas within 5 years. This declaration, known as the ‘Durban Vision’, has led to a rapid process of establishment of new protected areas across the island. However as there were almost no remaining ‘wilderness areas’ to be designated in Madagascar many of the New Protected Areas (NAP’s) contain significant human populations who both live within these areas and depend upon the use of the remaining resources. The different NGO and International Aid Donor promoters of the new protected areas have taken various stances on what the management objectives and governance systems for these areas should be. At the same time many of the NAPs, or at least parts of them, had already had management rights transferred to local communities using GELOSE and GCF policies, this situation has sparked an active debate on what form of participation the many and diverse stakeholders around these rural areas should be involved in governance and management. This paper tracks the process from the pre ‘Durban Vision’ lobbying by international NGO’s, through the declaration of the first waves of new protected areas, to the discussions and deliberations (which are still ongoing) about what forms the new protected areas management and governance system (SAPM) should adopt. The analysis combines information gained from participation in parts of the process, key stakeholder interviews, review of grey literature, and fieldwork conducted in Ifotaka and Ankodida protected areas. Preliminary reflections on the participatory approaches at both the national and local levels suggest that it is essential to provide more critical reflection on the reasons for, and modes of such participation. At the national level it is important to better understand the ways that NGO’s, Donors and the State collaborate, and how these modes of working influence the outcomes. At the local level it is suggested that the participatory approaches should be adopted where they genuinely have the potential to improve the legitimacy of management and governance domains. In this way participation with communities in protected areas should be seen as a tool to demonstrate empowerment through partnership and the transfer of responsibility, not as a tokenistic way of placating or manipulating (cf Arnstein, 1966).
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Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2023
Stakeholders' interactions with environmental resources are influenced by their mental models of the socioecological system of the environmental resource. Individual differences in such mental models are particularly important to identify, as diverse mental models may be associated with different behaviour or policy preferences and affect collaborative conservation efforts. In the present work, we explore stakeholders' mental models of a socio-ecological system and assess content and complexity differences across fishing experience levels, migration status, and regions. We mapped Tanzanian fishers' (N = 185) mental models of the drivers of the Nile perch stock fluctuation at Lake Victoria. The findings show that (1) fishers' mental models were complex and diverse, (2) mental models focused on the causal influence of destructive fishing activities, (3) mental model complexity, but not content, varied across regions, and (4) fishing experience and migration status were not consistently related to mental model complexity or content. These results have important implications for environmental resource management at Lake Victoria.