Long-term economic growth for the nation has significant potential to ameliorate pressures on biodiversity. For example, a study of rural people in Zimbabwe Communal Areas has shown that in general, the poor are more heavily dependent on environmental resources and have a greater destructive land-use tendency than those more well off. Innovative strategies such as nature-for-debt trades may have significant potential for long-term poverty reduction, with eventual profound implications for conservation.
Notably, Ravalomanana has already affected 5.3% growth in the economy in 2004. However, this growth has occurred in urban areas, not rural areas where biodiversity is most threatened. Underdeveloped infrastructure limits access of rural Malagasy to these markets. Additionally, history has shown that regardless of long-term growth plans, coordinated environmental and development plans must be able to deliver immediate economic benefits to community members as incentive to actively manage the resource.
Ravalomanana has advocated the economic potential of the nation’s growing ecotourism sector for providing short-term incentive to rural Malagasy to adhere to land restrictions and conservation policies; he should know, though, from the nation’s experience with Ranomafana National Park, launched in 1992 as a showcase project combining conservation and development, the limited revenue-generating potential of ecotourism in practice. If he thinks it will be different for Madagascar this time around, he need only to look to other parts of the world to see that ecotourism has had a limited capacity to generate sufficient revenue to support conservation efforts in practice.
Royal Chitwan National Park (RCNP) in Nepal is one of the most heavily visited parks in Asia. By creating economic incentives for impoverished villagers and their communities, ecotourism at RCNP is thought to encourage local guardianship of biological resources. However, a study of ecotourism’s effect on villagers found minimal economic impact: 1,100 of 87,000 (4%) locals were employed directly by the ecotourism industry, and only 6% earned direct or indirect income from ecotourism. Researchers attribute the remarkable success of RCNP in restoring its rhino and tiger populations to the strict protection by Nepalese army and park staff, the law-abiding nature of Nepalese citizens, and the absence of firearms among the rural populace, rather than from any incentive program.
By contrast, the CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe, in which local people have financial stake in preservation of wildlife because they receive a sizeable portion of revenues generated from safari fees, does provide tangible benefits from ecotourism for conservation. However, areas without big game do not have the revenue-generating potential required for conservation based projects that rely on revenue sharing because there is insufficient financial reward.
The intention to make wildlife and protected areas ‘pay for themselves’ is injudicious. Conservation initiatives must recognize the reality that most protected areas do not realize sufficient revenue to offset the costs to communities of retaining them. It is difficult to see how reserves in Madagascar could ever provide enough financial benefit to offset local people’s land-use preferences, which are strongly linked to their perceived long-term economic needs.
Any environmental action plan can only work if it brings immediate benefits to those who live in the forests. The EAP hopes to curb destructive land-use techniques by teaching rural Malagasy the long-term value of conservation. However, conservation education will have little importance for rural Malagasy whose most immediate and biological concerns are about survival from day-to-day; they cannot afford to hold out to glean the purported long-term benefits of conservation!
Education will not change land-use practices of rural Maligasy. Slash-and-burn agriculture is a tradition that has been practiced for centuries. More importantly, because of lack of formal land rights, farmers have limited incentive to invest in (more costly) agriculture techniques. The majority of Malagasy have no official title for the land they work on, so the most rational method of cultivation is the cheapest and shortest (slash-and-burn, plant, move on to more fertile land, and so on… until no forest is left)—a tragedy of the commons! As such, any conservation plan that aims to curb slash-and-burn agriculture techniques must be implemented in coordination with serious land reform policy in order to be successful.
Starving Malagasy, just barely able to eke out a living by subsistence farming, have no incentive to adhere to land-use restrictions. As in much of Africa, rural Malagasy often view wildlife conservation as misguided because it puts the needs of wildlife above those of people. EAP restrictions will not change land-use practices of rural Malagasy in the absence of thorough and stringent patrolling and management of protected areas. This has been evidenced by the failures of land restrictions in other parts of Africa.
The Central African Republic (CAR), like Madagascar, has made impressive commitments to conservation of biodiversity threatened by deforestation and harmful land-use, with protected areas covering 10.9% of the country. In most of these areas, though, the CAR has failed to provide significant economic incentives for locals to refrain from logging and poaching. Due to inadequate resources for patrolling and management, the protected areas are mere “paper parks” with formal conservation status but significant continued threat to biodiversity as before.
The EAP is a great accomplishment… on paper. However, as is, this management plan will be unable to protect Madagascar’s unique ecosystems because it fails to bring immediate and tangible benefits to the rural poor. Starving Malagasy have no incentive to adhere to land-use restrictions. The government’s attempt to teach the value of conservation will be futile in a population plagued by abject poverty. Education about the importance of biodiversity and conservation will have no resonance with individuals whose fundamental concern is day-to-day survival. Without the cooperation of rural Malagasy—because enforcement of land restrictions on 6 million hectares is financially and physically unfeasible—the EAP is unlikely to succeed in affecting its noble conservation and development goals.
Ravalomanana’s commitment to more than triple the size of protected areas has been hailed by conservationists as one of the most important announcements in the history of conservation, as Madagascar—with megadiversity and levels of endemism unlike any place on earth—is globally recognized as an urgent biodiversity priority. While his efforts are certainly commendable, the EAP at present is just “hot air” and without serious reevaluation and coordination at local, national, regional, and international levels, the few remaining primary forests of Madagascar will go up in smoke.
Resources
Article:
Cocks, Tim. (Nov. 8, 2004) “Madagascar Readies More Protected Nature Sites” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=28028>
Other Articles:
Cocks, Tim. (Dec. 20, 2004) “Madagascar’s Poor See No Benefit From Conservation” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=28629>
Cocks, Tim. (Mar. 16, 2005) “Madagascar To Spend $110M US Aid on Land Reform” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=29955>
Stoddard, Ed. (Jul. 17, 2003) “Madagascar’s Lemurs Cling to Survival” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=21533>
Stoddard, Ed. (Sept. 26, 2003) “Park Initiatives May Connect Dots of Life” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=22368>
Stoddard, Ed. (May 14, 2004) “World Bank Gives Madagascar Record Environment Grant” in Planet Ark. <www.planetark.com/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=25105>
Works Cited:
Blom, A., Yamindou, J., Prins, H.H.T, 2004. Status of the protected areas of the Central African Republic. Biological Conservation 118, 479-487.
Bookbinder, M.P., Dinerstein, E., Rijal, A., Cauley, H., Rajouria, A., 1998. Ecotourism’s Support of Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation Biology 12, 1399-1404.
Cavendish, W., 2000. Empirical regularities in the poverty-environment relationship or rural households: evidence from Zimbabwe. World Development 28, 1979-2003.
de Merode, E., Homewood, K., Cowlishaw, G., 2004. The value of bushmeat and other wild foods to rural households living in extreme poverty in Democratic Republic of Congo. Biological Conservation 118, 573-581.
Hackel, J.D., 1999. Community Conservation and the Future of Africa’s Wildlife. Conservation Biology 13, 726-734.
Inamdar, A., de Jode, H., Lindsay, K., Cobbs, S., 1999. Capitalizing on nature: protected area management. Science 283, 1856-1857.
Infield, M., 2001. Cultural Values: A Forgotten Strategy for Building Community Support for Protected Areas in Africa. Conservation Biology 15, 800-802.
International Monetary Fund and the International Development Association, 2002. Madagascar: Joint Staff Assessment of Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper Preparation Status Report. IMF, Washington DC.
Myers, N., Mittermeier R.A., Mittermeier, C.G., da Fonseca, G.A.B., Kent, J., 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853-8588.
Tshombe, R., Mwinyahali, R., Girineza, Mr., de Merode, E., 2000. Decentralising wildlife management in the Democratic Republic of Congo: integrating conservation and development in a country at war. In: Abbot, et al. (Eds.), Promoting Partnerships: managing wildlife resources in Central and West Africa, Evaluating Eden Series 3. International Institute for Environment and Development, London.
World Wildlife Fund, 2003. Madagascar commits to triple the size of the island’s network of Protected Areas. WWF, Washington DC.
<http://www.panda.org/gtte>
World Wildlife Fund, 2003. Madagascar’s experience with swapping debt for the environment: Background paper for the Vth World Parks Conference Durban, South Africa. WWF, Washington DC. <www.conservationfinance.org/WPC/WPC_documents?Apps_11_Moye_Paddack_v2.pdf>
Wright, P.C., 1992. Primate ecology, rainforest conservation, and economic development: Building a national park in Madagascar. Evolutionary Anthrology 1, 25-33.
Other Sources:
Abbot, J.I.O, Mace, R., 1999. Managing Protected Woodlands: Fuelwood Collection and Law Enforcement in Lake Malawi National Park. Conservation Biology 13, 418-421.
Africa Conservation Foundation, 2005. Madagascar: Conservation Projects. ACF, United Kingdom. <www.africanconservation.org/madagascar.html>
Alcorn, J.B., 1993. Indigenous Peoples and Conservation. Conservation Biology 7, 424-426.
Chee, Y.E., 2004. An ecological perspective on the valuation of ecosystem services. Biological Conservation 140: 549-565.
de Merode, E., 1998. Protected Areas and Local Livelihoods: Contrasting Systems of Wildlife Management in the Democratic Republic of Congo. PhD Thesis, University of London.
Department for International Development, 2002. Wildlife and poverty study. DFID-UK, London.
Hulme, D., Murphree, M., 2001. African Wildlife and Livelihoods: the Promise and Performance of Community Conservation. James Currey Publishers, London.
Kremen, C., Raymond, I., Lance, K., 1998. An Interdisciplinary Tool for Monitoring
Conservation Impacts in Madagascar. Conservation Biology 12, 549-563.
Roe, D., Mayers, J., Grieg-Gran, M., Kothari, A., Fabricius, C., Hughes, R., 2000. Evaluating Eden: Exploring the Myths and Realities of Community-Based Wildlife Management: Series Overview. International Institute for Environment and Development, London.
Inamdar et al. 1999; Tschombe et al. 2000; de Merode et al. 2004
Hackel 1999; Infield 2001
