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Abstract
At the Ambohitantely Special Reserve in the central highlands of Madagascar, local people's use of fire and conservation authorities' efforts to change local practice illustrate the complexity of conservation issues. In theory the integrated conservation and development discourse provides a people-oriented context for framing conservation strategies, but in practice it may be no more effective than the “fortress”-style approach that it replaced. In Ambohitantely local people largely recognize the importance of the forest and they extract little in the way of resources. Development activities in local villages have been unsuccessful due to a simplistic conceptualization of the “local community” and socially unacceptable projects. A small number of cattle owners whose use of fire incidentally damages the forest have not been engaged by the ICD plan. The case illustrates that unquestioning imposition of “politically correct” management strategies may preclude the development of optimal solutions.
Notes
Madagascar ranks as 149th out of 175 countries in the Human Development Index, and has a GDP per capita of only 830 US$ (UNDP 2003). Aid per capita was as high as 22.2% in 2001 (World Bank Citation2003).
The Malagasy national parks association, Association Nationale pour la Gestion des Aires Protégées (ANGAP), was established as a para-statal organisation with responsibility and jurisdiction over national parks and protected areas (Gezon Citation1997). The National Environmental board, Office national de l'environnement (ONE), became responsible for coordinating and implementing the EAP. The National Environmental Action Association, Association nationale d'action environnementale (ANAE), were given responsibility for soil management (Hufty and Muttenzer Citation2002). For an overview of institutional structures involved in the EAP see Kull (Citation1996, 64).
Institutions can be defined as sets of formal and informal rules and norms that shape interaction of humans with other and nature (Agrawal and Gibson Citation1999, 637).
Common forest genera include Weinmannia, Olea, Compiphora, and Uapaca. Uapaca's semideciduous habit reflects the highly seasonal nature of regional rainfall, which means that ridgetops in particular dry out during the dry season.
A fokontany is a Malagasy unit of administration at the lowest local level. The four fokontany are Antakavana, Antaniditra, Ambatoharanana, and Maharaidaza.
By Ingvild Kalland and translator Clarisse Randriamahaleo in 1999/2000.
The team consisted of Jean Tsaboto (historian), Serge Razafiarison (anthropologist), and Dolys Andriantseheno (geographer).
Klein and Edwards on a pilot study in 1999; Réau and the team in 2000; the team in 2001; Réau, Klein, and the team in 2002.
Bloch (Citation1971) should be consulted for further information on the Merina people.
These categories were not used openly, so it required a great deal of tact and skills of the field team to establish a notion of the different groups, status, and conflicting lines among the local people.
According to Kull (Citation2000, 188): “Fokonolona means the community group. A concept with multiple overlapping meanings, including a village, assembly, the collected citizens of a hamlet, fokontany or rural commune, or a sort of collective will of the people.” In the peripheral zone the term was described as a community formed by the populations of one or two villages based on continuity and solidarity.
The zone includes two communes, Antakavana and Ambolotarakely, which are under the administration of the Ankazobe District (fivondronana).
In a typical contract, the tenant works a certain piece of land, contributes seeds, and harvests the crop, which will be divided equally between owner and tenant.
This case was assessed by a legal tribunal in Antananarivo, who in 2002 voted in favor of the hova.