Cultural Perspectives on Conservation in the Madagascar Biodiversity Hotspot (original) (raw)
Related papers
A high degree of biodiversity, endemism, and simultaneously of habitat loss earmark Madagascar as one of the earth’s hotspots. As one means to reduce the loss of biodiversity international conservation NGOs promote the establishment of protected areas. While protected areas are evidently a reasonable approach to preserve valuable ecosystems and thus their services, they are a western conservation concept and often leave a local social and cultural understanding far behind. Protected areas are frequently inhabited by local people who directly depend on natural resources for their livelihoods. Local people have their own value systems and customary rules, which have developed over a long time. Although international conservationists work on detailed concepts for best practice conservation, it is abundantly clear that there needs to be more space for local peoples’ voices. In our view this can only be met, when next to the scientific realm of facts, a realm of values is part of the idea. In a study in two biosphere reserves in the north and several studies in the south(west) of Madagascar local people were asked about their relation with the forest and their perspectives on the value to use and the value to conserve the forest. In this article it is sought to contrast the scientific reasoning to conserve a forest with the understanding of people living in or around protected areas. The aim is to provide a basis for dialogue between apparently differing positions on forest ecosystems that provide services to both the local and the global community. (Normative) rules for action are identified and summarised to perpetuate conservation initiatives.
Biodiversity and Conservation, 2009
At the 5th World Parks Congress, held in Durban, South Africa in 2003, the President of Madagascar committed his government to tripling the country’s protected zones over the next 5 years. The announcement reflected a desire to combine rapid conservation efforts with sustainable development. Conservationists in Madagascar focused their attention on the endemic baobab tree, Adansonia grandidieri. This paper aims to identify the contradictions between the political emergency of the biodiversity conservation effort and local development needs. Eighty-three semi-structured interviews were conducted in two villages near the protected area of “Baobab Alley” in the Menabe region. Malagasy conservationists believed the area’s protected status would benefit the local economy through eco-tourism. However, the conservation actions undertaken there display limited understanding of local dynamics and conflict with farmers’ needs. To protect the baobabs, the government has prohibited rice cultivation without providing compensation. We show that the multifunctional baobab tree is integrated into an agroforestry system and protected by farmers. Based on these results, we address the issue of how to combine conservation and local development objectives through the involvement of farmers and the recognition of local knowledge in tree management. We also demonstrate that an emergency approach to conservation is not conducive to the successful integration of conservation and development.
Local protection of tropical dry forest : taboos and ecosystem services in southern Madagascar
2004
Forests protected by local taboos represent a practice found in many areas of the world. However their role in sustaining ecosystem processes and conservation of biodiversity is poorly investigated. In southern Madagascar, formally protected areas are nearly totally absent, despite that this is an area of global conservation priority due to high levels of endemism. Instead numerous forest patches are informally protected through local taboos. In southern Androy, we found that all remaining forest patches larger than 5 ha were taboo forests, with effective protection and use restrictions. We mapped and characterized 186 forest patches in five study sites in Androy, and investigated spatial distribution, species composition, and the rules and sanctions associated with the patches. Nine different types of forests were identified, ranging from <1 ha to 142 ha representing a gradient of social fencing from open access to forests with almost complete entry restrictions. The taboo forests and non-protected forests differed in species composition but not in species richness. Twelve ecosystem services were identified as being generated by the forest ecosystems, including capacity of binding soil, providing wind break, as habitats for wildlife and sources of honey and wood. In conclusion, we found a social capital related to forest management to be present in Androy, with a well-functioning sanctioning system perceived as legitimate among local inhabitants, although not explicitly directed towards conservation of biodiversity or ecosystem services. In Androy, the current challenge is to secure conservation of the forest patches and their capacity to generate services, but without compromising the cultural values or the local capacity to adaptively manage the forest ecosystems.
Managing community-based conservation in Bobaomby, Madagascar
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.
Conservation versus local livelihoods? Sustainable development challenges in Madagascar
2018
In the imagination of people worldwide, the island of Madagascar is synonymous with beautiful rainforests and exotic animals, like lemurs, found nowhere else. Often absent from this foreign view, however, are the island’s human inhabitants – the Malagasy people. Largely reliant on small-scale agriculture, they depend on land access to survive. With few agricultural inputs and little technology available, shifting cultivation is a well-adapted, rational land use practised by many Malagasy to grow staple crops. But as various factors – demographic, market-based, etc. – put the whole land use system under pressure, shifting cultivators are forced to expand their farming into remaining forests. This causes conflict with those who want to conserve Madagascar’s forests and biodiversity as a global good. To date, no environmentally just and equitable solutions have been found that ensure conservation of the region’s extraordinary biodiversity while enabling local land users to escape pover...
A combined research agenda towards integrated conservation and development for Madagascar
Madagascar Conservation & Development, 2011
Better integration of social and natural science activities seems to be the key to improve the efficiency of conservation and development. While there is no recipe for success, this paper argues that conservation has to pay for itself if it wants to be anchored in present-day-societies. In systems where humans SPOTLIGHTS Madagascar Conservation & Development is the journal of Madagascar Wildlife Conservation (MWC) and the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI Switzerland). It is produced under the responsibility of these institutions. The views