THE POTENTIAL FOR CONSERVATION CONTRACTS TO CONTRIBUTE TO

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION IN MADAGASCAR

Joanna Durbin, Aristide Andrianarimisa, Philip Decosse,

Andrew Keck and Frank Hawkins

Madagascar• One of the most important biodiversity hotspots in

the world :– Very high endemicity, at higher taxonomic levels as well

as species– Extreme species richness for plants (12,000 + spp.)– Almost all endemic species limited to forests– High and increasing rates of habitat loss, mostly through

slash-and-burn, an assured source of food and revenue in a climatically and politically variable context

– Very little privately-owned forest land

Conservation Initiatives

• 15 year National Environmental Action Plan largely initiated through donor interest in biodiversity (1991-2007)

• 300 M USD + in the first ten years• Initially a conventional focus on protected areas

and provision of alternatives to unsustainable resource use

• Latterly a switch (with enabling legislation) to community forest management at a landscape scale

Initial lessons

• Protected areas work well but at a relatively small scale and are expensive

• The linkage between development investment and conservation was obscure, leading to little conservation gain

• Community forest management is rarely adequate to ensure biodiversity conservation on its own; hunting and small-scale forest use continue to erode biodiversity

Conservation Contracts

Our hypothesis is that existing management transfer contracts can be modified to provide a direct incentive for conservation, and that this will provide a productive complement to other initiatives already underway

Context of existing management transfer contracts

• Contracts relate to use of forest resources for subsistence or commercial use

• Contracts are between villages and the Water and Forests authority, with the commune as a guarantor

• Contracts are for three years renewable to ten years • Control and oversight are very difficult as

infrastructure is poor, authorities under-resourced and abuse frequent

How will conservation contracts work

• Using existing management transfer legislation• Funds will come through regional biodiversity

coordination committee, who provide regional biodiversity planning context to ensure larger-scale conservation benefit

• Contracts will be agreed for conservation areas adjoining village-managed sustainable use areas

How will conservation contracts work (2)

Payments will be made to three main contractual beneficiaries– Village(s) with a management contract for the

conservation area– Local authority with responsibility for forest

management (Water and Forests Ministry)– Local administrative authority (communes)

Contract parameters

• Payments will be made on a yearly basis for an amount negotiated either: – As an estimation of the value of the forest products

foregone (traditional use rights); – Or on willingness to accept

• Villages agree not to cut wood, hunt, clear forest for cultivation, collect honey, tubers, medicinal plants in the conservation area

• They agree to report infractions to an agreed agency

Communities

• Payments will be made to individuals represented by community organisations

• Communities will agree not to use the core area of forest at all

• Communities will agree on a set of rules and sanctions implemented through a traditional local law- a “dina”

Local authorities

• The Water and Forests authority are responsible for creating the management plan and implementing the national forest law- particularly preventing third party abuses

• The communes approve the contract, facilitate the dina, and mediate in regional disputes

Monitoring and enforcement

• Deforestation can be tracked by remote sensing

• Small-scale forest use by regular patrols involving independent monitors, community members and local authorities

• Abundance of important bushmeat species may be monitored through repeated and replicated presence-absence surveys

Testing

• Testing is envisaged in three areas of particular biodiversity importance– Menabe forests, centre-western deciduous forest,

threatened by clearance for maize and unsustainable logging

– Lake Alaotra, extensive papyrus reedbeds, where burning and hunting of an locally-endemic lemur occur

– Makira forest, eastern lowland and mid-altitude rainforest, cleared for hill rice

Larger-scale issues

• Provides a mechanism for external investors to channel funding directly to “biodiversity providers”

• Beneficiaries often the poorest of the rural poor• Potential complementarity with, or channel for,

ecosystem service payments • For larger contiguous areas of forest beyond

village management capacity, the state may agree to conservation concessions