| [Back to front page] | The Madagascan experience Field research in Madagascar for the first phase of the Protected and Peripheral Area Management Systems project came to a close in 1997. The studies examine legal and institutional conditions that underlie the potential for community-based, cooperative management of renewable natural resources. They also report on preliminary efforts, in which the research team participated, to negotiate community-initiated agreements for the management and use of highly valued timber and non-timber forest resources. The conclusions are being widely circulated in Madagascar among policy makers, programme managers and researchers concerned with conservation and sustainable development issues in and around protected areas. Findings from Phase I emphasise the importance of local institutions in anchoring community management systems, the various sources of conflict that arise among stakeholders as change in traditional patterns of relationship is anticipated, and the tenuous legal basis that local communities have for entering into contractual relationships. Although the investigation was conducted at sites with their own unique conditions, the conclusions of the research provide insights to more general concerns about how communities and the state can reach mutual agreement about the allocation of resource rights and benefits. The issue of legal recognition of local institutions and, conversely, community acceptance of formal arrangements often inhibits community-based management. A proposed second phase of the research is designed to develop and test a methodology for establishing community-based, collaborative agreements for renewable natural resources management among key stakeholders as a strategy for implementing Madagascar’s new devolution policy.
|