A happy ending for Madagascar?
To those fortunate ones closer to the age of lollipops than lager-bellies, the wildlife of Madagascar is doubtless best known through the lens of the 2005 DreamWorks movie, which saw the denizens of a New York zoo pitched back into a more - erm - "native" environment with, as they say, "hilarious consequences".
In real life, though, Madagascar has become an important proving ground for a number of forward-looking concepts in conservation and sustainable development; which is why there is some concern in environmental circles now about the country's political turmoil.
President Marc Ravalomanana became a prominent developing world voice in various international processes connected with environment and human development, and sought ways in which his population could profit from preserving the indigenous wildlife rather than ransacking it.
International conservation organisations have been able to work alongside local communities, developing ecotourism ventures and sustainable forest products.
And as a reservoir of biodiversity, it's up there with the best the Earth has left to offer. It's home to 49 species of lemur - two had remained undiscovered until 2005 - it has about 30 bats, and thanks to its 100m-year isolation from any other landmasses, it posesses some unique species such as the fossa, a mongoose relative.
Amphibian experts estimate there may be as many as 4,000 species waiting to be discovered - and if that's right, maybe a quarter of them will turn up in Madagascar.
So whatever the rights and wrongs of Mr Ravalomanana's ousting earlier this month by Andry Rajoelina, it's an event of no little interest to conservationists.
There are two principal worries; firstly, that a power vacuum and civil unrest will create a situation in which local structures break down, allowing "harvesting" of species (plant or animal) that would be forbidden in more peaceful times - and secondly, that Mr Rajoelina (who has yet to unveil a policy platform on most issues) may turn away from the sustainable development path mapped out under his predecessor.
One of the international groups that's been most active in Madagascar is the US-based Conservation International (CI); so I called up Frank Hawkins, who lived on the island for about 15 years and is now the organisation's vice-president for Africa.
In two previous periods of unrest (1991 and 2001), he told me, turn-a-quick-buck "harvesting" is exactly what had happened - with rosewood and the big-headed turtle (now critically endangered) among the prime targets.
Apart from its direct impact on wildlife, periods like this make life more difficult for communities and entrepreneurs attempting to make a sustainable living - and having them make a sustainable living is probably the only way to preserve the forests and their wildlife in the long term.
But, Frank said, there is also concern about the future of some innovative ventures that CI and other international groups have been working on with local communities.
On the international side, money will almost certainly begin to flow quite soon from the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) mechanism that is very likely to become part of the UN climate change convention later this year. But where it flows to depends on stability; unless REDD funders are persuaded Madagascan forests really will be protected, they will look to other countries instead.
REDD is a kind of "carbon offset", albeit one that carries benefits to wildlife as well; but Mr Ravalomanana had also spoken of trying to develop "biodiversity offsets", where companies (locally or internationally) have to fund measures that compensate for the ecological damage they cause, whether it's avoidable or not.
Frank also said there were proposals that would see downstream users of water, such as farmers, having to contribute something to the protection of natural zones upstream (such as forest or wetland watersheds) that naturally regulate the supply of clean water.
The potential loss - and until Mr Rajoelina reveals his hand, it is just "potential" - of these schemes would not just represent a significant step backwards for conservation locally, but internationally too.
While some developing country governments recognise that exploitative "business as usual" isn't really a forward-looking option, not many of them are pursuing the kind of innovation seen in Madagascar (Costa Rica is another outstanding example) that could, if they prove successful, be instituted much more widely.
A couple of weeks ago, CI wrote to me about the establishment of the first nature reserve in Papua New Guinea, another country fabulously rich in wildlife and where many undiscovered species are presumed still to exist.
It's a development that should bring benefits to both people and wildlife. Communities will receive better access to health and education in return for managing their lands sustainably.
Papua New Guinea is at the beginning of a path on which Madgascar embarked more than a decade ago. But the current lesson of Madagascar is that all effective in-situ conservation, whether national parks or species protection or sustainable logging or whatever else it may be, depends in the end on good and stable governance.
Environmentalists will be among those casting an anxious eye towards the island state and hoping its tensions die quickly, rather than its conservation ambitions.
I'm Richard Black, environment correspondent for the BBC News website. This is my take on what's happening to our shared environment as the human population grows and our use of nature's resources increases.
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~02~RS~)
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Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention - I wish this was on the front page, not stuck out in the blogs. You're quite right about all the implications you draw from the recent change in regime, and about how hopeful many of the ecotourism, offsetting and sustainable investment schemes were looking before the Ravalomanana regime fell.
What you're missing though, is quite how high the stakes are. In 2005, Madagascar had 879 species of land vertebrate - so mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles - of which 739 (83%) are found nowhere else on earth. For context, Britain has about 350 species, mostly birds, and almost all are found in much of Western Europe.
It's the single most important conservation location on earth. The international community must try everything we can to keep the new Rajoelina government involved in the business of protecting these species.
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I'd be interested in your opinion of the Daewoo land deal that Rajoelina has apparently thrown out as one of his first actions since he took power. How important is this politically? It seems to me that to give over such a huge amount of the country's arable land to feed Koreans is hardly a good political move. While it might have provided some jobs, it would not have benefitted many people in Madagascar.
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But the current lesson of Madagascar is that all effective in-situ conservation, whether national parks or species protection or sustainable logging or whatever else it may be, depends in the end on good and stable governance.
- Richard Black (above)
We have all seen our governments come and go, with seemingly little continuity between regimes. Witness Bush vs Obama. Or Chamberlain vs Churchill, etc...
To my mind, the United Nations offers one of our best hopes for a more humane future.
"The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries and to provide a platform for dialogue."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_nations
For me, a North American, it is most reminiscent in its conception and even its operation to the "Great Peace" of the Iroquois Confederacy, in modern guise of course.
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You should all read this story and remember the people (some of the poorest in the world) in this situation.
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I worked in Madagascar from 2001 to 2004 as EU technical assistant within National Authority of Protected Areas (ANGAP).
Even though conservationists, and I am one of them, seeks an happy ending of the Malagasy crisis, it is really difficult at present to foresee a happy ending for rural communities, in Madagascar and others African rural communities, where poverty increases over the years, despite prominent voices like President Ravalomanana. He has been accused from the young opposition leader to run the country like a private estate (a french journalist nicknamed him "tropical Berlusconi"). I don’t know if it is true or not, but I was there till 2004 and he had his momentum, at least in the highlands. But where democracy is not working and it is just a concept and matter of declaration to calm down the worries of donors, things may change quickly.
The real problem is that poverty is endemic as many animal species. The establishment of successful conservation strategies, with real participation and ownership of the user of ecosystems, will be possible once sound policies of poverty eradication are working in rural areas. In this field, there is a lot of paper work like many parks in Madagascar and elsewhere are just paper parks. Sad to say that, but, in my view of course, is the reality.
The point is that environmental depletion is growing everywhere due to bad governance, and corruption, at the top, and rampant poverty at the grassroots. Corruption is an “ongoing humanitarian disaster”. Also the civil unrests and insecurity turns rural people and military in environment predators.
It seems that over the years there is no real progress on the god governance of environment in Africa. Many Presidents of the continent run their countries like private estates. Elites of capital cities disregard rural people, and this is also true in Madagascar, and officers are send in secluded rural areas as punishment.
Of course international conservation organizations do their best to protect species and ecosystems, with people participation and alleviate somehow poverty and so on….
When I worked in Madagascar the cutting in the forest of Tsimembo was organized by a MP elected in that area (Mr. Ravalomanana was president at that time), for its own benefit but also for the benefits of rural dwellers, who got some money from illegal tree cutting, with complicity of forestry service, which in turns get his own benefit too (in frech we say "gagnant-gagnant" strategy). In the same area an international conservation organization was working with same local communities of the forest of Tsimembo to put in place a “sustainable” forest management scheme. Reports and papers of this organization where enthusiastic about the job and achievements, and the donors too of course.
It is only trough good governance and stability, which cannot be without poverty eradication, conservation will be achieved. The day when a forestry officers of any secluded post of Madagascar (and not only) will be not interest (or at least afraid) in trafficking wood to integrate his meager salary, or MP will be prosecuted for illegal trafficking, that day will be the day of change. Any international conservation organization, or declaration at international conference, or declaration of any President will not do the job. The question is: anybody knows the solution? Of course donors countries have not the solution as they have already destroyed their own environment, so they are not a good example as far as conservation is concerned, of course.
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The latest news from Marojejy National Park can be read on www.marojejy.com/Crise_e.htm.
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I found this article on the effects of climate change on Madagascar.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609115216.htm
Apparently, the study is robust. For me, it lends weight to other predictions of the upslope migration of species in response to a warming planet, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
As Tim Flannery has mentioned in his book, "The Weather Makers" (2006), there is only one issue, climate change.
- From Calgary -
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Thanks for your question about the Daewoo land deal in Madagascar, lumenfez. To be honest, I don't have enough details about it to make any specific comments; but what I would suggest is that the details are all-important. What types of land were specified? What were the environmental and social constraints? How was the income to be utilised? Who retains ultimate ownership?
These are key questions, it seems to me, not only in this case but in the other land deals being pursued in Africa at the moment. On the one hand, they could create modern versions of colonial-era plantations that were basically run as private fiefdoms; on the other, they could generate new income for cash-strapped communities, mandate environmental protection, and bring better technologies to improve agricultural productivity all round.
Many thanks for your insightful comment, robinson-crosue. Your sentence "The real problem is that poverty is [as] endemic as many animal species" expresses one of the big, big problems perfectly, I think.
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