Abstract
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.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the Institut Français de la Biodiversité (IFB) and CIRAD (Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement) for the funding provided. We also thank our guide, R. Razafimahatratra, our interpreters E. Rakotoarisoa and V. Rahajanirina, and L. Rasoanaivoson, our reliable driver. We are grateful to the farmers and the heads or Fokontany of Bekonazy and Andranomena for their helpful cooperation. We are thankful to the agents of ANGAP and Fanamby, and to the officers of the regional water and forestry services who greatly contributed to this study. We thank G. Delobel for her translation and comments, C. Cornu for the mapping work and E. Torquebiau for his rereading and comments which greatly contributed to improving this paper.
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Marie, C.N., Sibelet, N., Dulcire, M. et al. Taking into account local practices and indigenous knowledge in an emergency conservation context in Madagascar. Biodivers Conserv 18, 2759–2777 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-009-9672-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-009-9672-9