Territorialization, enclosure and neoliberalism: non-state influence in struggles over Madagascar's forests

Abstract

Using the case of the expansion of Madagascar's protected areas, this paper examines ‘state’ territorialization under neoliberalism as a process that involves non-state as well as state institutions. Challenging notions of state territorialization as a state controlled process, it reveals the state as a vehicle through which numerous non-state entities sought to expand their control of and authority over Madagascar's forests. It argues that, as state and non-state entities negotiated Madagascar's protected area boundaries, associated rights and acceptable uses, they determined not only claims to forest lands, but also the authority to make forest policy and to decide who could accumulate wealth from Madagascar's forests. Ultimately, the expansion entailed practices of primitive accumulation by enclosing common lands and creating new opportunities for private capital accumulation.

Keywords:

• territorialization
• neoliberal conservation
• forests
• Madagascar
• non-governmental organizations

Notes

¹The deadline was later extended to 2012.

²The ‘10%’ standard was a environmental threshold and a territorial standard also embraced by the Millennium Development Goals and the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity targets, although the objectives of protecting 10% of a country's territory or biomes are often conflated (Secretariat 2007, UN Statistics Division 2008).

³I realize that ‘state’ and ‘non-state’ are generally difficult to render as mutually exclusive categories, and I recognize that neither ‘state’ and or ‘non-state’ entities are homogenous. I do not go so far as James Scott (1998) in regarding the nation as being divided into state and non-state spaces; as I discuss here, the territories in question are contested, overlapping, and not homogenously understood at any level. Nonetheless, these entities do have official positions and policies, and villagers or others often experience them as unified organizations. I have therefore tried to use the term ‘state’ to refer to Malagasy governmental or parastatal institutions, distinguishing them, for example, from non-profit or non-government organizations, private mining companies, and foreign aid donors. Where possible I refer to specific institutions and the official policies or official positions of these institutions.

⁴Following French law, a décret (decree) clarifies/defines how to apply a law. It is passed at the ministerial level and is usually agreed to by all ministers in the government. An arrêté (order) further defines the details of a law or decree.

⁵Now called Madagascar National Parks.

⁶The material presented herein draws on document analysis, participant observation and 144 semi-structured interviews conducted with former and current representatives of national, regional and local branches of the Madagascar government; foreign aid donors; international conservation and development NGOs; Malagasy NGOs; private sector companies; consultant groups; and scientific organizations based in Antananarivo, the regional cities of Toamasina and Fianarantsoa, and selected villages in the Ankeniheny-Zahamena and Fandriana-Vondrozo eastern rainforest corridors. Because of the sensitive nature of some of the interviews, I agreed to protect confidentiality for all interviewees, and thus all information is reported anonymously in that sources are identified only by general position; village identities are kept confidential; and interview dates are not revealed.

⁷Interviews with an international conservation NGO representative and a former senior Madagascar government official.

⁸The most recent version of the IUCN's system of categories for protected areas includes seven categories of protected areas: Category Ia: Strict nature reserve/wilderness: for science or wilderness protection; Category Ib: Wilderness area: for wilderness protection; Category II: National park: for ecosystem protection and recreation; Category III: Natural monument: for conservation of specific natural features; Category IV: Habitat/Species Management Area: for conservation through management intervention; Category V: Protected Landscape/Seascape: for landscape/seascape conservation or recreation; Category VI: Managed Resource Protected Area: for the sustainable use of natural resources (Dudley and Phillips 2006).

⁹The Durban Vision Group oversaw five technical groups: 1) management and categorization, which was responsible for setting up a management system consistent with the IUCN guidelines; 2) biodiversity prioritization, which continued the biodiversity prioritization work; 3) communication, which coordinated communication with regional and central authorities and the general public; 4) legal framework, which developed legislation relative to the program; and 5) funding.

¹⁰Interviews with a conservation NGO representative, a bilateral donor official, and a foreign scientist.

¹¹Interviews with mining and international conservation NGO representatives.

¹²The mining industry in Madagascar comprises two sub-sectors: the large-scale mining sector, which focuses primarily on various industrial ores, and the small-scale informal, unregulated gemstone mining sector. The vast majority of mining takes place in the small-scale, informal, unregulated mining sector in Madagascar. Both illegal and legal mining are expanding rapidly in Madagascar (Bilger 2006). The negotiations referred to in this section are between conservation NGOs and large-scale mining companies.

¹³Interviews with mining and international conservation NGO representatives.

¹⁴Interviews with contractors and a regional Madagascar government official.

¹⁵Interviews with regional international conservation NGO representatives.

¹⁶In Malagasy, this can be translated as ‘Tending the forest’.

¹⁷Interviews with international conservation NGO representatives.

¹⁸Interviews with bilateral donor officials.

¹⁹Interviews with a Madagascar government official, an international conservation NGO representative and a bilateral donor official.

²⁰Interviews with international conservation NGO representatives, a bilateral donor, and a contractor.

²¹This would meet the newly negotiated CBD target to protect, by 2020, at least 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water, and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catherine Corson

A special thanks to Nancy Peluso, as well as Christian Lund, Desmond Fitz-Gibbon, and two anonymous reviewers who commented on earlier versions of this manuscript. Research support came from the National Science Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon/American Council of Learned Societies, Rural Sociological Society, University of California Berkeley Center forAfrican Studies, the Foreign Language and Area Studies Program and the Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program. Thanks also to Vokatry ny Ala. Rebioma provided the shape files for the map.