Human Organization, Vol. 70, No. 1, 2011 Copyright © 2011 by the Society for Applied Anthropology 0018-7259/11/010074-14$1.90/1

The Dif.ficult Reconciliation of Conservation and Development Objectives: The Case of the

Malagasy Environmental Action Plan Jacques Pollini

Environmental conservation and poverty alleviation are paramount challenges of our time, but are frequently in conflict.

This a1iicle analyzes this tension in the case of Madagascar. It is based on a review of the literature concerning the Malagasy

Environmental Action Plan and on four years the au thor spent in Madagascar, including two years working for the implementation

of this plan. It will show that even though this plan was framed within the sustainable devclopment paradigm, it failed to solve

the conftict between development and conservation objectives. This failure is explained by the framing of the plan within a

global environmental agenda that faits to answer to the needs of peasant communities; by the reluctance of the international

community to recognize the mistakes otïll-designed projeets; and by the dissolution ofthe Malagasy statc within a governanee

state that flatters the promoters of environmental conservation, and a shadow state that con trois the na tura! resources economy

and runs it underground. As a remedy, the au thor proposes shifting from design-based to incentive-bused poli ci es within which

fanners will be able to ereute synergies between conservation and development.

Key words: deforestution, poverty, slush-and-bum cultivation, environmental policies, governunce regime, governunce stute,

shadow state, Madagascar

Introduction

Environmental conservation and povcrty alleviation are two paramount objectives of the global agenda. They have al ways been in tension from the first global

environmental conference, held in Stockholm in 1972, to the elaboration of the sustainable development agenda during the l980s and I 990s. This tension is particularly visible in debates about the causes and remedies of deforestation in developing countries. It is generally acknowledged that both poverty and economie development can trigger deforestation: poor fanners lacking resources to sustain their livelihoods migrate to forested areas where they establish new fields, while the causes of this migration are usually economie growth and the land and resource grabs that accompany it (Angelsen and Kaimowitz 2001; Colchester and Lohmann

Jacques Pollini is Visiting Fe/law, Depart ment of Natural Resources, Corne!! University and Post-Doctoral Fellow, Department o.fPo/itics and International Relations, He11(/rix College. The author is gratt?;fit! to Pro.fèssor Jmnes P. Lassoie, Pro.fèssor Ronald J. He/Ting, and Dr. Steven A. Wo(t: (?{Cornell University, who provided him with a stimulat­ing environment in which to conduct this research; to the anonymous reviewers.for their though({ul comments; and to hisfami(vandfriends, jiJr the encouragement they have a/ways provided.

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1995). Ncverthcless, controversy about the causes of defor­estation continues to fuel hcated debates about wh ether there are tradeoffs or synergies betwcen economie development and environmental conservation (Lee and Ban·ett 2001 ), and about whether thcse objectives need to be addressed simul­taneously. ln the carly 1990s, conservation organizations agreed on the need to link rural development and biodiversity conservation (West and Brech in 1991; Western and Wright 1994), Jeading to the concepts ofintegrated conservation and development projccts (ICDPs) and community-bascd natural resource management (CBNRM). But these approachcs did not Jead to the cxpectcd outcomes (Brandon, Redford, and Sanderson 1998). Some conservation biologists rcacted by calling for a retum to authoritarian approaches (Oates 1999; Terborgh 1999), while other scholars strongly criticized this advocacy and attempted to rcfine the concept of community participation (Wilshusen ct al. 2002).

At present, it is still disputable whether conservation programs work and provide benefits to local people (Chomitz and Kumari 1998; Dove 1993; Levang, Dounias, and Sitorus 2005). Protectcd areas are threatencd by the needs or wants of populations living in or around them, are criticized for their negative impacts on rural livclihoods (Brcchin et al. 2003), and often lead to blatant human rights violations (Campese et al. 2007), while rapid deforestation continues (FAO 2006).

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This article analyzes this situation in the case of Madagascar. It studies the way rural development and biodiversity con­servation objectives have been articulated during the three phases of an ambitious National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP), launched in 1991 with support from the international community. It is based on a review of the literature produced by this plan and on four ycars the author spent in Madagascar, including two years as a technical advisor at the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Forcsts. 1 After a briefpresentation of the historical context, the three phases of the plan will be presented and discussed successively, in tl1ree separate sec­tions, as they will each raise a specifie issue.

Specifie "data" have been neither collected and pro­cessed, nor prescnted in this article.2 Rather, 1 attempt to tell the full story ofNEAP as 1 experienced it ( concerning the third phase) or as 1 lcamed aboutit through readings and discus­sions with colleagues ( concerning the fLrSt and second phases). Consistent with this, sources that unfold who le stories and let realities "speak" arc favored, and initial framing of the issue within an academie discipline or sub-field is minimized. The purpose is to study NEAP comprehensively, avoiding, as far as possible, focus on topics that would be narrower than the tension between conservation and development objectives.

The approach is similar to participant observations car­ri cd out by anthropologists, the main difference being that 1 was authentically a mcmber of the "tri be" 1 studied (the policymakers and their partners). For this reason, I did not take notes during discussions and did not ask questions other thau those required for achieving my professional duties. This has three main consequences. First, comprehensiveness and content are maximized, which minimizes the risk of being biased by an excessive focus on certain mechanisms. Second, the leve! of ce1tainty of each statement is relativcly low (many assertions are not "substantiated" by rcpeated observations), which is unfortunately the priee one pays to achieve comprehensiveness, as shown by Popper ( 1963 ). Third, 1 was directly interested in the results, because a better understanding of the issues at stake helped me to do a better job. This enablcd me to produce a form ofknowledge that the Greek philosopher Aristotlc callcd metis.-' a term recently popularized by Scott ( 1998). Metis knowledge is derived from experience, cannot be summarized by simple statements, and requires intuition as muchas reason in order to be produced. lt ditfers from the knowledge produced by canonical science, and its verification or falsification is thus qui te difficult, but it is obviously required in the production of any expertise, as is intuition (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1986 ), especially if this expertise is dedicated to the resolution of real-world problems. ln other words, this article attempts to depict an open system (i.e., an objectas it exists in the real world) with the aim of changing that system. It contrasts with conventional methods that use data sets to eonstruct models whose internai validity is elevated (which renders them easily verifiable or falsifiable), but are closed systems that eannot exist in the real world (which reduces their external validity or operational value).

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Results: The Malagasy Environmental Action Plan (NEAP)

Historical Context

Elements of the history of environmental conservation efforts in Madagascar can be found in Ramanantsoavina (n.d.), Lavauden ( 1934), Kull (1996), Bertrand and Sourdat ( 1998), Andriamialisoa and Langrand (2003), Jolly (2004), and Sodikoff (2005). This histmy will not be detailed here, but a few insights will be provided showing that the tension bctween conservation and development objectives has been a constant in the history ofMalagasy environmental policies since the colonization of the island.

The first known written laws dea ling wi th forest manage­ment in Madagascar were aimed at protecting the interests of foreign investors whi le restrieting resourcc extraction by local populations. The Charte Lambert, issued in 1855 by King Radama Il, regulated the extraction of forest products by a company owned by Lambert, a foreign investor. 1t was followed by a code of305 articles in 1881, regarded as the first "modem" legislation, that forbade charcoal production and seUlement inside forests, banned forest buming, and Jimited the practice of slash-and-bum cultivation (Lavauden 1934).

During the colonial period, environrnental and forest policies wcre increasingly repressive as a result of the influ­ence of French botanists, such as Perrier de la Bâthie (1921) and Humbert ( 1927) who raised concem about deforestation. These policies were also more efficiently enforced, especially after 1930, due to the strcngthening of the forest services by Lavauden. A new forest decrec, issued in 1930, banned any form of vegetation fi re. lts en forcement was lessened after the rebellion of 1947 (Kull2004); but not un til independence, in 1960, would agricultural tires be authorized again, albeit with certain restrictions (Pollini 2007).

After indcpendence, Madagascar became increasingly connected to global environmental discourses and initiatives. lt became a membcr of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) in 1961, participated in the Man and Biosphere Program of UNESCO, and sent a delegation to the 1972 Stockholm United Nations Environment Conference. In his short speech at this conference, the vice president of the Malagasy Republic insisted on the need to reconcile the satisfaction ofhuman needs with the conservation of nature. He asserted, "The only realist attitude is the rational use of natural resources, and, imperatively, con­servation, in order to insure the permanence ofthese resources" (Repoblika Malagasy 1972:40).4 The Malagasy delegation advocated support tor regional planning and development, to­gether with pollution control and natural resource conservation, anticipating the sustainable development discourse that would become popular in the late 1980s (WCED 1987).

Survivalist discourses that lean more toward conservation goals (Dryzek 2005), however, were also influential during the conference. They favored narratives in which conservation and development, or nature and culture, are seen as being in deep conflict. The Malagasy Ministry of Agriculture and Rural

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Development sent out an "SOS" to gain support for its fight against bush fires ignited by pastoralists. Severa! sections of the conference report put at the forefront the need to educate farmers in order to change their "mentality," to repress their practices, to sensitize them to environmental issues, and to pro­pose new techniques to them (Repoblika Malagasy 1972). But after 1972, Madagascar entered a period ofpolitical turmoil and deep economie crisis (Brown 2000). The resolution taken after the 1972 conference would not be translated into actions until the 1980s, when Madagascar abandoned the socialist revolu­tion and reopened its frontier to Western neoliberal institutions.

In 1981, the IMF and World Bank launched their first programs and Westem biologists began visiting the country. The Malagasy government understood the opportunity it could get from this situation to capture the foreign aid that was so necessary for solving the debt crisis (Jolly 2004). In 1984, it created the National Commission ofNatural Resourcc Conservation for Development, in charge of preparing the Malagasy Strategy of Natural Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development, called for by IUCN, UNEP, and WWF {Kull 2004). This strategy was adopted during an in­temational environmental conference held in Antananarivo in 1985. Severa) programs followcd, fLmded by the World Bank and other donors. They conccrned soil conservation, forest management, biodiversity conservation, and environmcntal education (Kull1996). Top staff from international conserva­tion NGOs visited Madagascarwhile Malagasy officiais mul­tiplied their contacts in the United States {WJight 1996). The World Bank, strongly criticizcd in the mid-1980s for its sup­port for the construction ofhighways in the Amazon, needed to green its image by developing green projects. Madagascar was just the right terrain to achieve this (Joli y 2004 ).

Renee, the conditions for establishing an ambitious National Environmental Action Plan (NEAP) were met. This plan was written in 1988 by a Permanent Technical Commit­tee working un der the authority of a National Commission tor Conservation and Development, with fi nan cial and teclmical support provided by the World Bank (leader of the don ors' group), USAID, the Swiss aid agency, UNDP, UNESCO, and WWF (World Bank 1988). According to the World Bank ( 1990), the interdependence of conservation and development was the key tenet that guided the preparation of the plan.

The Malagasy NEAP was launched in 1991. It was ex­pected to Jast 15 years and to be divided into three phases. Its framing within the sustainable development discourse (WCED 1987) was made explicit by the adoption of the National Environment Charter. This charter stipulates that the objective of NEAP is to "reconcile the population with its environmcnt in order to ac hi eve sustainable development" {QoM l990:Article 6). The implementation of the plan will unfortunately fail to fulfil these objectives.

The First Phase (EP1~ 1991-1997)

The first phase of the environmental action plan (EPI) cost about $150 million (World Bank 1996). Its main objective

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was to create new protected areas and to improve the manage­ment of existing on es. It created a specifie and in dependent organization, the National Association for the Management of Protected Areas (ANGAP), to manage protected areas and set up integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs). EP 1 also financed soil conservation practices, princi­pally agroforestry and reforestation in vulnerable watcrsheds, not necessarily around protected areas. Another in dependent organization, the National Association for Environmental Ac­tions (ANAE), was created to achieve this second objective.

In spi te of the ideals of the National Environ ment Charter and the adoption of the ICDP approach, EP 1 was launched in an atmosphere of controversy about whether it was dealing with the right priori ti es in a country wh cre poverty and misery were at a peak (Jolly 2004). Madagascar was one of the rich­est countries in te1ms ofbiodiversity, but one of the poorest economically. "This contrast provoked, probably more than elsewhere, a tension between the partisans of conservation and th ose of rural development" (World Bank 1990: 1 ). 5

Evaluation repmis would Jater demonstrate that these concems were justified. The Ranomafana National Park ICDP, implemented through a partnership with the lnstitute for the Conservation of Terrestrial Ecosystems (ICTE), and often regarded as a symbol of successful conservation programs (Wright andAndriamihaja 2002), provides a striking example ofEP 1 's failure to achieve its ideal. According to EP 1 's evalu­ators (OSIPD 1995), park managers utilized development activities as an appendix to conservation objectives, if not as a lure. In many cases, these activities increased inequalities because most of the a id was concentrated in a few villages (OSIPD 1995). The fact that natural resources, in addition to being unavailable, were being "utilized" by foreign people (tourists and scientists) also caused strong resentment. As a traditional chief put it: "Wc arc like trapped rats: we are here likc in a jail and wc cannat utilize ail these things that are in our place" (OSIPD 1995:75).6 A frequent joke was that "Ranomafana is not a national park, but a family park" (OSIPD 1995:77),7 in the sense that only a few pJivileged people, mostly scientists and ecotourists, benefitted from it. Ecotourism encouraged business and creatcdjobs, but outsid­ers largely captured these opportunities, as can be observed by any visitor of the area. In sum, after having been margin­alized by slavery, by the Merina and French colonization, and by the Betsileo immigration, the Tanala people are now impoverished by conservation programs whose "success" depends on the control of local populations. An eider sum­marizes the situation: the Ranomafana population is "like a wild oxen that one wants to tame: it is attached to a tree for two weeks and is not fed; after the two weeks, it is 'broken,' and even kids can pet its nostrils and pull its cars without danger" (OSIPD 1995:78).8

EPI 's evaluators fütmd the same misleading strategy in the Andringitra and Ivohibe National Parks and in the imple­mentation of EP 1 's second component (soi! conservation). On the whole, they concluded that the main objective of the environmental charter (the reconciliation of humans with

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their environment) was not achieved because of an imbalance between conservation and development objectives (OSIPD 1995). Other evaluation reports (CAST 1995; CCR 1995) provide less-detailed analyses and are Jess pessimistic, but also observed that activitics are not adapted to the situation of most farmers; that there is often discrimination in fa v or of the richer households; that priority is given to conservation objectives; and that many farmers protest about restrictions on access to land and resources.

Peer-reviewed research publications provided similar conclusions ( Ghimire and Ghai 1994; Ku li 1996; McCon­nell 2002; Shyamsundar and Kramer 1997). Concerning Ranomafana, Harper (2002), who was strongly pressured not to reveal her findings (Harper 2008), depicted a dramatic situation in which residents strugglcd against malnutrition and diseases while access to the resources that could help them to survive was closed. She concluded that conservation and development policies "were implementcd in Madagascar with little or no regard for the Iights of human subjects" (Harper 2002:224). Ferraro (2002) calculated that the cost to communities living in an arca adjacent to Ranomafana National Park ranged from $19 to $60 per household, which is very substantial given the deep poverty, high vulnerabil­ity, and Jow health status of people living around the park (Hardcnbergh 1996, 1997; Harper 2002; Kightlinger, Seed, and Kightlinger 1996, 1998). Still, in Ranomafana National Park, Peters ( 1998, 1999) and Hanson ( 1997) dcscribe a situ­ation of cont1ict or tensions between local communities and park or ICDP managers. I conducted a rapid rural appraisal in villages of the Ranomatàna butTer zone in 2002, and my observations were consistent with these conclusions. A never­ending extraction of socioeconomic data was still ongoing (l took part in it), but was not translated into beneficiai action, provoking the anger of communities living in deep poverty and having very limited access to the surrounding resources.

The main reason why ICDP failed in Madagascar was, thus, an imbalance between conservation and development objectives. This imbalance can be explained by the framing of the approach within a global agenda according to which conservation matters more than development. Conservation is the justification for NEAP's multilateral and bilateral fun d­ing in the first place, and NGOs can easily market it to the public, using charismatic animais such as lemurs. Because the orientation of the programs is determined more by the global institutional superstruch1rc within which NEAP is framcd than by the realities faced on the ground (Gezon 1997), corrccting this imbalance proves extremely difficult.

Another cause of ICDP's failure may simply be that development objectives are technically more difficult to achieve than conservation ones. Conservation biology is still a young science, but it established a series of concepts, such as the minimum viable population, Jandscape connectivity, gap analysis, and adaptive management, that have proved to be efficient tools for managing biodiversity. As long as social issues are not considered, conservation biologists can easily agree about where to create protected areas and how to

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manage them. Armed forest guards can easily forbid access to protected areas and guarantee the application of conservation biology princip les. This cynical statement exp lains wh y parks managed in a para-military manner are technically the most efficient way to conserve biodiversity (Bruner et al. 2001 ).

Development, on the other hand, is an elusive concept, and there is still no consensus on its meaning. It is often confused with growth and is simultaneously universally adopted and widely criticized for its Westem-centrism. Even ifpolitical and social constraints to development did not ex­ist, development actors could hardly agree about what kind of support (teclmical, economie, educational, infrastructure) to provide to the peasantry. To give just one example, there is still an intense debate about whether population increase Jeads to agticultural intensification (Boserupian mode)) or to agricultural crisis (Malthusian models), and, hence, about whether population increase and support to investment, or population control and technological innovation, would be the keys to successful agricultural intensification. Positions taken in this controversy are often biased by political agendas, the consequence being the proliferation of received wisdoms, myths, or dreams about how to achieve development.

1 analyzed in detail these biases and the myths they gener­ate when I conducted fieldwork in the rural municipality of Beforona, fi·mn 200 l to 2007 (Pollini 2007). To evoke them very briefly, they are: ( 1) excessive trust in formai economie models that oversimplify economie realities; (2) the overlook­ing of the moral economy and of the livelihood strategies associated with it; (3) the overlooking of the agrarian system and of land-use dynamics that occur at regional scale and over long periods; (4) prejudices against traditional farming practices; (5) the exaggeration of erosion processes; (6) the demonization of fire and of agricultural systems that employ it as a tool; (7) the romanticizing of the relations between communities and their environment; (8) the manipulative character of participatory methods; (9) excessive trust in market mechanisms; and ( 1 0) the "high modemist" scheme (Scott 1998), which, among other things, overemphasizes the importance of obtaining high yields and of planting ac­cording to regular pattems (sowing in lines). It is obviously more challenging to achieve consensus on these issues than on the core princip les of conservation biology.

In sum, ICDP staffknew what they had to do, biophysi­cally speaking, to efficiently manage the biodiversity in na­tional parks, but confronted their own ignorance when they had to design support strategies for farmers living around the parks. In this context, it can appear rational, at first sight, to focus efforts on conservation objectives. But this could only offer illusions ofsuccess, as conservation is inseparable from development ifit is to work in the long term and be achieved with proper ethics.

The Second Phase (EP2 1997-2003)

EP2 was launched in 1997, with a planned budget of $155 million for five years. It recognized the failure of the

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ICDP approach but still advocated an integration of conserva­tion and deve1opment objectives. As the World Bank's Staff Appraisa1 Report put it, "The batt1e to protect Madagascar's biodiversity will be won or lost on agricultura1 land away from the forest, because the ba tt le in which rural populations are engaged is about production and land use, not about the environment" (World Bank 1996:11 ).

In order to win this battle, EP2 rep1aced the ICDP ap­proach with three new concepts: participation, regionaliza­tion, and decentralization. Three components were specifi­cally created to translate these new models into action: the GELOSE (Secure Local Management), the A GERAS (Sup­port to Regional Programming and Spatial Analysis ), and the FORAGE (Regional Fund for Environmental Management). The GELOSE component, which raised the greatest hopes, failed to fulfil its objectives for reasons analyzed in severa! reports (Maldidier 2001; Randrianasolo 2000) and peer­reviewed articles (Ku li 2002; Pollini and Lassoie 20 Il). To summarize briefly these findings, it mostly providcd a legal framework for the implementation of unauthentic participa­tory mcthods that restrictcd access to resources without pro­viding altcmatives. TheA GERAS and FORAGE components werc not more successful, probably because the regional institutions they created never became fully opcrational, and because they promoted the same ill-designed activities and inherited the same imbalance between conservation and development that characterized EP 1 . Regional approaches will be formulated again during EP3, under the label DCT, as wc will sec in the next section.

Like for EPI, EP2's evaluator concluded that the pro­gram did "not answer to the nceds regarded as a priority by the population, cspecially in the regions of Antananarivo, Toamasina, and Toliary" (OSIPD 2000:50). Rural commu­nities and regional and local authorities felt that only a few activities had a positive impact on development, poverty al­leviation, or food security (OSIPD 2000). But if the results were similar to th ose encountered during EP 1, the evaluators explained the situation in a new manner. They recognizcd that the program bad a problcm of legitimacy, but addressed this issue in an astonishing way. They argued that legitimacy is to be measured "by the leve! of knowlcdge of the program and its componcnts, by the leve! of integration of the logical framcwork in the beneficiarics' environment, by the quality ofthe perception of the actions implemented by the pro gram" (OS !PD 2000: 126 ). 9

According to this methodology, legitimacy and under­standing are positivcly correlated variables. This is a highly disputable assumption, as an illegitimate program could be pe1fectly understood, while a perfectly legitimate one could be totally misunderstood. Assuming that these two aspects are positively correlated is equal to assuming, before starting the analysis, that the pro gram is judicious. The evaluation, by assuming that what must be questioned is "the perception of the action," not the actions themse!ves, becomes tautologi­cal. The consequence is that the evaluators cannot go further than recommending better communication and more fun ding

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to continue the same program. This is indeed what they did (OSIPD 2000). Five years before, EP 1 's evaluators (OSIPD 1995) showed that the pro gram 's lack of impact was caused by a bias in fa v or of conservation activities and by ill-designed deve1opment activities. The EP2's evaluators implicitly rejected these outcomes without providing any justification.

This Jack of genuine questioning may be explained by the institutional superstructure analyzed by Gezon ( 1997). EP2's evaluators may have been trapped within this super­structure, which forced them to build up a more convenient "reality" that is consistent with NEAP's core assumptions. The more formai and abstract methods they used, in which measurements of variables defincd by experts replaced the narratives and voices that EPI 's evaluators reported, may have faeilitated this production of eonvenient knowledge.

Beyond the avoidance of genuinely questioning NEAP, EP2's evaluation may also reveal a willingness to transform local realitics according to extemal designs. Emphasis on communication rather than cognition is consistent with this endeavor. Communication efforts have the potential to create a symbolie system that becomes the mode! according to which material rcalities are reshaped. Till'ough this reification proc­css, a society and its people are required to adapt to a mode!, rather than the other way around. As reshaping realities accord­ing to such central designs does not work, NEAP continues to have a limited impact, and local communities continue to pay the high priee of conservation, as anticipated by World Bank consultants Carrel and Loyer (2003) and as verified by a recent study by Hockley and Razafindralambo (2006).

The Third Phase (EP3, 2004-2008)10

The transition between NEAP's second and third phases was complicated by the political crisis that occurred in 2002 after the Decembcr 2001 election. When stability retumed, the new president bad to prove his commitment to address­ing environmental issues, prior to receiving EP3 's funding. A communication and repression campaign was organized, with support from USAID and other don ors, to strengthen the en forcement of the ban on forest clearing. Projects financed by USAID (MIRA Y, LDI, PTE) provided communication materials and organized workshops in rural municipalities of Eastern Madagascar. A presidential decree was issued that promised to reward "green communes" that successfully controlled fires and forest clearing. A few farmers who had cleared forest or practiced slash-and-burn cultivation were arrested and jailed, and a presidential message announcing the new measures was broadcast on national radio. This created fear, and many farmers either did not sow their upland riec that year, or sowed it late in the season (Pollini 2007), result­ing in nu li or low harvests. Most Ma1agasy staff! met did not agree with or expressed bitter feelings about this approach, because of its high social and politica1 cost and the ethical issues it raised in a context of deep poverty. But they bad to accept it, as it was an implicit condition of the 1aunehing of NEAP's third phase.

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EP3 started in this context of environmental repression. Its total budget is estimated at $171 million, including $40 million from the World Bank. Its key objectives are to ex tend and strengthen the protected-area network and to prepare the post-NEAP period by streamlining environmental concems in ali sectors. But beyond these conservation objectives, the program daims again to be framed within the sustainable development ideal of the 1990 Environmental Charter. It is supposed to reflect the Letter ofEnvironmental Po licy of the Malagasy government, adopted in September 2003, which asserts that the environmental po licy is part of the povCity reduction strategy.

EP3 also recognizes explicitly the existence of negative economie impacts on local communities. lts cost-benefit analysis states that slash-and-burn farmers are the lasers in the program, as a ban on this land use ineurs a cost of $94 million at their leve! (Carret and Loyer 2003). These costs are expected to be mitigated by encouraging soil conservation techniques aimed at stabilizing slash-and-burn cultivation (World Bank 2004). Agricultural intensification activities, however, are most! y eliminated fi·om the program. They have been transferred to projects that support the Malagasy Rural DevelopmentAction Plan, adopted in 1999. These projects are principally the Rural Development Support Project (PSDR) financed by the World Bank (a $69.2 million grant for the period 2002-2007) and other projects funded by USA ID, the French cooperation agency, the Swiss aid agency, and the European Union, among others. Concerns about the lack of coordination between the PSDR and NEAP will untoitunately be a recurring topic during EP3 's implementation.

Forgetting earlier experiences, EP3 thus rejected at the outset development objectives. The creation of new protected areas quickly became its core objective. During the World Congress of Protected Areas held in Durban, South Africa, in September 2003, the President of Madagascar, tollowing the ad vice of its intemational partners, engaged his country to increase the protected arca coverage from 1.7 million to six million hectares, in order to put 10 percent of the land under conservation and meet IUCN recommendations. The Ministry ofEnvironment, Water, and Forests (MINENVEF) created a special commission, the Durban Vision Group (DVG 11 ), to guide the aehievement of this objective. The technical secretariat of this group included representatives of Conservation International, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and the World Wide Fund for Nature, who played a paramount role in organizing the group's meetings.

At the beginning, the DVG's objective was to facilitate the creation of new protected areas {initially ca lied conser­vation sites) that would not be managed by ANGAP. These conservation sites were intended to allow more room for human activities and were to be managed in a more decen­tralized way with the strong involvement of communities; local partners, and NGOs. Seventy-five percent of the area would be dedicated to sustainable resource extraction by local communities in order to contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development.

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The DVG worked on defining minimum management rules to be a pp lied to conservation sites. Its fust propositions, in 2004, were quite restrictive and at odds with what could be expected aceording to the initial intentions. According to a 2004 version of the DVG working document (GVD 2004), "no mining activity is accepted in conservation sites," and "no commercial extraction of ligneous products, of any ki nd, is accepted in conservation sites." Commercial harvest of non-timber forest products (NTFP), which usually do not generale significant income (Sander and Zeller n.d.), could be authorized, but would be restricted to natural resource extraction zones and subject to strict management rules. In sum, a ban would be put on the commercial extraction (by communities as weil as by large operators) of the most valuable products on 4.5 to six of the 7.5 million remaining hectares of primmy forest.

These restrictions led to intense discussions between the DVG members. Restrictions on mining activities were the subject of negotiation between the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the MINENVEF, through the Mine-Forest Conunission. Conceming the ban on ligneous products extrac­tion, some organizations, such as the German developmcnt agency (GTZ), 12 the French cooperation a geney, the SAGE, 13

UNESCO, and to a lesser extent UNDP and the WWF, ad­vocated for a softer position according to which extraction would not be excluded a priori from the who le protected area system, unless it wou Id take an industrial form. Most staff of the Malagasy forest services also favored this option, either because they had vested interests in logging operations, or because they considered the harvesting of natural resources to be a legitimate way to develop the Malagasy economy. In spi te of this, the more restrictive conservation approach, which was prcferred by major donors, was officially adopted. The lobby of nongovernmental conservation organizations has been particularly efficient at defending this option. The "discovery" of illegal woodcutting in the Ambohilero forest, planned to be transformed into a Conservation Site, gave legitimacy to its view. This operation was "discovered" in September 2004 by the President of Madagascar during a flight over the for­est, but had been weil known since Februmy 2004 by severa! conservation ac tors (including myself) and by many staff from the Ministry. lt involved a joint venture between a Malaysian and a Malagasy firm. 14 A road was opened a cross the forest and 17 km had already been built when the operation was discov­ered. A sawmill was under construction on the site and heavy machines (bulldozers, trucks) were being used. This may have been the first industrial timber extraction enterprise in Mada­gascar.15 The Ministry stopped the operation and issued a series of orders restricting forest product extraction. Inteiministerial order 19560/2004, signed on October 18, 2004, suspended the granting of new mining and forest resources extraction authorizations in ali areas reserved as Conservation Sites for a peiiod oftwo years. 16 This ban was renewed in 2006 for an additional two years. Ministerial order 21694/2004, signed on November 11, 2004, canceled ali existing wood extrac­tion authorizations, without compensation, and prohibited

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the extraction of ligneous resources in these same areas. 17

Conservation organizations were surprised by the severity of the measures. A well-positioned expatriate colleague argued that the decision was not the result of their lobbying and feil short of explanation. I suggest that the ban could have been desired by sorne high-ranking persons because it created a monopoly on timber extraction by favoring the few opera tors who benefited from high-levcl protection. This thesis is con­sistent with the fact that illicit wood extraction continued and containers ofprecious wood were regularly shipped for export in 2005 and 2006. According to top staff from the Minist1y of Environment, Water, and F orests, 119 containers of rose wood and ebony were shipped from Toamasina for export in 2005 in unclear conditions. They were blocked by customs but eventually received the agreement of the General Inspector of the Ministry of Environment, Water, and Forests. 1

R No forest permit exists that can ex plain the extraction of su ch a volume of wood. 1t is indeed weil known that the main arca where Malagasy rosewood is cxtracted is Masoala National Park. The Ministry regularly ordered inventories of illcgally harvested wood, followed by exceptional authorization for collection and export (OSF 2005), a tactic that is weil known among forest governance experts.

This story illustratcs the concomitant formation of a "governance state" (Harrison 2005; Duffy 2006) and a "shadow statc" (DufTy 2005), a process that certainly had already begun to occur during the two first phases ofNEAP but that may have taken on a new dimension after the proc­lamation of the Durban vision. The sovereignty of the state has dissolved in two directions. On one side, new practices are designed and applied to pilot projects, with the support of international organizations, in order to implementa global environmental agenda whose adoption by Malagasy authori­tics is ritualized during international conferences. On the other si de, an underground economy th rives throughout the coun­try (Ramamonjisoa 2004), driven by networks that connec! wood traffickers to corrupt politicians. New regulations are issued with the support of foreign experts, but they are the manifestations of a govemance regime that is increasingly at odds with the real economy, which, thus, remains under­ground. The result is that the state and its citizens are doubly dispossessed: by the international community that overly prioritizes certain goals such as biodiversity conservation, and by underground networks that institutionalize corruption and monopolize the natural resource economy, trapping the country in poverty and dependency.

In this context, the French cooperation agency proposed ·~ new model, the Development and Conservation Terri tory [OCT), which would reconnect the conservation and devel­)pment agendas and implement them on a regional scale. fhis was indeed a recollection of the ideas that sustained he A GERAS component of EP2. DCTs would consist of )ne or severa) core sites protected for the ir high biodiversity md oftheir sun·oundings, inhabited and already modified by mman activities. They would match with the IUCN fifth cat­~gmy19 of protected areas, which is the only one compatible

:o

with predominantly anthropogenic landscapes, as its core princip le is "the maintenance of environmental and cultural values where there is a direct interaction between people and nature" (Phillips 2002:1 0). The OCT, in sum, could be a way to solve the imbalance between conservation and development objectives that characterized NEAP.

The OCT concept has been widely accepted by the Mala­gasy government and its pmtners as a tool for regional planning. But the idea that it would correspond to a protected area has been rejected. The main objection was that emphasis is put on the cultural dimension ofthc landscape rather than on its natu­ral dimension, which makes the concept of little relevance in countries Iike Madagascar, where most threatened biodiversity is located in nonanthropogenic Jandscapes. The sixth categ01y (Managed Resources Protected Arca), which also authorizes multiple uses ofresources but concems predominantly unmodi­fied naturallandscapes, was prefeiTed to the fitlh category.

In spite of this, advocacy for considering the DCT as a protected arca category persisted, which can be explained by an excessive politicization ofthe debate betwcen 11-ancophone and Anglo-Saxon aid and conservation organizations. 211 The consequence was a Jack of clarity of discourses elaborated by the Ministry's teclmical advisors, creating a situation of "triple bind": at the politicallevel, strict conservation policies were adopted as a result of the efficient lobby of conservation organizations; at the technicallevel, there was a cl car willing­ness to open the system, though it was not clear wh ether the OCT was the appropriate way to do so. And on the ground, the "shadow state" continued its operations.

Eventually, TUCN expetts were hired in March and July 2005 to calm the debate and provide more objective guidelines. The experts belonged to the World Commission on Protected Areas and the Commission on Environment, Economie, and Social Policy of IUCN. They proposed adopting an open, logical framework that would combine ali management objectives and governance modes (Borrini­Feyerabend and Dudley 2005a). Their second mission, in July 2005, was aimed at supporting the creation of this new framework through a participatory process that would start at the local level (Borrini-Feyerabend and Dudley 2005b). The new framework would be formalized by a new legisla­tion, constituting a Protected Arca System (SAPM)21 that would render obsolete the notions of OCT and Conservation Sites. The proposition was aceepted, and from that moment the SAPM became the new conceptual and legal framework within which conservation programs had to work.

A decree (2005/848) was issued on December 13, 2005 that created three new categories of protected areas (GoM 2005). These categories would be more open to human activi­ties and to the extraction of natural resources. This decree, however, did not propose cl car mies or guarantees concerning the way to address negative socioeconomic impacts. First, it asserted that the acceptance of protected areas by rural com­munes, districts, and regions had to be fonnalized by official documents, but did not require any formai acceptance of the outcomes of consultation at the community level. Second, it

HUMAN ORGANIZATION

stated that communities "can" be compensated iftheir access to resources is limited, meaning that this compensation is just an option. Third, it required an environmental impact assess­ment prior to the creation of protected areas, but no socioeco­nomic impact assessment. This situation is qui te astonishing, as one can hardly doubt the environmental benefits of gazet­ting a protected area, while negative socioeconomic impacts for local communities seem to be the rule, as shown during EPI and EP2 (Carret and Loyer 2003; Ferraro 2002; Ghirnire and Ghai 1994; Harper 2002; Larson 1994; McConnell2002; OSIPD 1995, 2000; Peters 1998, 1999; Sander and Zeller n.d.; Shyamsundar and Kramer 1997) and as shown again by the more recent study ofHockley and Razafindralambo (2006).

ln sum, the 2005/848 decree reveals the same reluctance or incapacity to address socioeconomic aspects that led ICDPs to tailure. It may have appeased the critiques of the fortress conservation approach but provides no guarantee that social aspects will be better addressed by key conservation actors. Displacement of pressures, which results from the voluntary resettlement of fanners wh ose access to resources is restricted, may be the main negative environmental impact of the crea­tion of protected areas. Socioeconomic impact assessments, not environmental impact assessments, should, thus, be conducted to anticipate these pressures. Ironically, only the latter type of study is mandatory un der the new regulation.

In spi te of these concems, the new regulation enabled the creation of 919,000 hectares of protected areas in 2005, fol1owed by l, 102,566 hectares in 2006 (World Bank 2007), and 730,000 hectares in 2007 (USAID 2008). According to the MINENVEF (2007), 163 marine and terrestrial protccted areas, totalling 7,238,380 hectares, have been creatcd or are planned to be created in Madagascar. In this context offrantic gazetting, concems about the potential negative impacts of protected areas on local communitics wcre raised again at the end of 2006, most! y by the World Bank. The third EP3 supervision mission, implementcd in Scptember-October 2006, asserted that no sufficient funding was available to implement development activitics around protected areas. The supervision mission furt11cr pointed out that the Mala­gasy govemment adopted, on Odober 3, 2003, a procedural framework for mitigating impacts provoked by the creation ofprotected areas, conservation sites, and land reserves (AN­GAP and MINENVEF 2003). If this safeguard policy were not implemented, the World Bank would be at risk of being criticized by human rights lobbies.

This problem was intensely debated during the EP3 joint committee of June 12, 2006.22 The term "compensation," employed by the World Bank, created a certain fear on the pmi of intemational NGOs and other partners involved in the creation of protected areas on the ground. It suggested the requirement offinancial trans fers whose amount would match the cost incurred by local communities, that would be difficult to calculate, and that they would not be willing to provide because communities that already adopted sustainable land uses could not receive this reward.23 The te1111 "mitigation" was prefened because it did not imply an exact match between

VOL. 70, NO. 1, SPRING 2011

costs and benefits, and because mitigation measures can be ordinary development activities such as th ose that had already been implemented. Eventually, a national framework for the implementation of mitigation measures, to be applied by ali conservation actors, was issued (MINENVEF 2007). The te1111 "compensation" is employed in the document, but straight­forward compensations are not even mentioned. Instead, the framework requires the establishment of action plans aimed at avoiding the degradation of local livelihoods. It recom­mends the implementation of activities such as management transfers, technical training, capacity-building, reforestation, microcredit, and animal hus bandry rnicroprojects, which were already implemented in ICDPs and during EP2 and whose impact proved limited for the reasons already discussed.

The consequence is that although NEAP is now close to an end, no satisfactory solution has been found to the trade-off between conservation and development. The tenn "mitiga­tion" legitimized the continuation of ordinary development activities that had existed since EPI and EP2 and failed to create compensation for the restrictions of access to land and resources. This may put both the local communities and the Malagasy protected arca system at risk in the future.

Conclusion

This story shows that the same tensions between conser­vation and development objectives are found in carly Mala­gasy environmental poli ci es and in the tbree phases of the Environmental Action Plan. Actors have al ways been aware of the need to answer to conservation and livelihood challenges simultaneously. The sustainable development ideal, explicitly adopted in the Malagasy Environmental Charter, represented the common frame within which ali were engaged. But in spi te of this, priority was given to conservation, which led to the utilization of development activities as a Trojan horse for convincing fa1111ers to accept conservation measures and adopt ill-designed agricultural techniques. ICDP, CBNRM, decentralization, and regionalization ali failed to achieve their promises for this very reason.

Instead ofrecognizing the failure ofthese approaches, the plan claimed that more time and more communication were required to achieve results (conclusions ofEP2 's evaluation); rejected the development agenda at the outset (by creating the PSDR); adopted a repressive approach to guarantee some impact on the deforestation rate (the fire repression campaign of 2002); and ritualized its vision to place it higher on the national agenda (the Durban Presidential declaration).

The consequence is that the Malagasy people remain poor and continue to depend on the unsustainable use of natural resources. Poverty continued to increase during the 1990s in most rural areas (Patemostro, Razafindravonona, and Stifel 2001) in spi te of severa! years of economie growth, and the situation persisted during the Iast decade. Conceming defor­estation, the data are more controversial. Dufils (2003) argued tlmt because of the diversity of the methods employed, only three data sets can be compared: the estimations of Humbert

81

and Cours Darne (1965) (10.74 million hectares in 1953), of IEFN24 (6.25 million hectares in 1993), and of JRC25 (5.53 million hectares in 1999). According to these sources, 102,000 hectares of rainforest would have been cleared every year between 1953 and 1993, and that pace would have persisted between 1993 and 1999. After 2000, a reduction of the de­forestation rate was observed at the national leve!. USAID (2008), using the data of CI et al. (2007), showed that the deforestation rate dropped from 0.83 percent per year betwcen 1990 and 2000, to 0.53 percent per year between 2000 and 2005. This slowdown, howcver, is not necessarily an out­come of the sophisticated design and hcavy cxpenditures of NEAP. It could be explained by the fact that in an increasing numbcr of locations, the remaining forests are located on steep slopes or at altitudes unsuitable for riec cultivation, which may favor a forest transition. It could a Iso be explained by the fear created by the fi re repression campaign of 2002, whose impact on farmcrs' behavior was obvious at !east in Eastern Madagascar, while the same could not be said of NEAP's development activities and environmental education programs. If the decrease in the deforestation rate mostly depended on repression campaigns, the Malagasy people may takc opportunity at the first political crisis to reclaim their identity and their rights ovcr rcsources. lnsights about the impact of the cuiTent political crisis26 will probably soon tell us whethcr this applies.

A furthcr consequence of the failurc to rcconcile conser­vation and devclopmcnt objectives is that the Malagasy state has dissolved itselfinto a governance statc whose decisions strongly depend on the agenda of international organizations and a shadow statc ru led by corrupt elites. In the Govemance ;;tate, wc fi nd the many working commissions of EP3, such 1s the Durban Vision Group. Thesc are discourse coalitions :I-Iajer 1995) managcd by a proliferation of "hybrid statc 1ctors" (Goldman 2005:38) who create new regulatory re­~imes. The donor consortium, which coordinatcs the work )f these commissions, "can be rcgarded as a transnational ~ovcrnance mechanism" (Dutfy 2006:741 ). lt reflects the tdoption of "participatory" mcthods designed within the deal of "democratie pragmatism" (Dryzek 2005:99), but :an also promote repressive campaigns when real results 1re required, like before the disbursement of EP3 's fu nd s. \s the formai sovereignty of states cannot be put into gues­ion, intemational organizations involved in this governance 11echanism use knowledge and rhetoric, which they chan­el through workshops, reports, and other communication evices, to orientate state decisions in the dcsired direction. 'hese communication deviees produec knowledge through process that can be regarded as a ritual, rather than as an

ct of cognition of material realities. A new "knowledge" he global conservation narrative) progressively replaces or ~fo1ms existing knowledge established si nee ti me immemo­al and embedded in Malagasy culture.

NEAP's rituals occur both at the state leve!, where work­tg groups such as the Durban Vision Group play the most gnificant role, and at the local leve!, where associations,

such as the COBAs,27 are created by NGOs to spread the environmental agenda among local stakeholders (Pollini and Lassoie 20 Il). But whether these rituals will affect the material world will depend on whether the new systems of knowledge carry enough relevant cognition, i.e., on whether they are based on an understanding of the material realities they are aimed at fixing. This requires, as Bloch ( 1989) dem­onstrated, a permanent dialectic between ri tuais and cognition that the Malagasy NEAP, overly driven by a superstructure designed by Westem elites, unfortunatcly failed to achicve.

The Malagasy Environmental Action Plan, in sum, operate as an "anti-politics machine" (Ferguson 1990) that depoliticizes environmental issues by promoting technical solutions to political and social problems, and repoliticizes them by cncouraging the adoption of an externally design cd environmental agenda that is disconnected from the material realities it is aimed at changing. But it also operates as an "anti-cognition machine" that uses rituals as a way to force the adoption of irrelcvant knowledge. This leads NEAP's in­stitutions to ignore wh at local communities expect from their natural environ ment (Keller 2008); and to overlook the collec­tive responsibility for environmental degradation (the political cconomy of erosion and deforestation). The consequences are the failure to address the trade-offbetween conservation and development; a refusai to sec this trade-otf; and resistance to conservation, through arson and illegal forest-clearing at the local levet (Kull 2004 ), and through the forn1ation of a shadow state at the national leve!. ICDPs, CBNRM, region­alization, decentralization, participation, capacity-building, mitigations, agroforestry, agrobiology, in this context, are just a succession ofbuzzwords that the intemational community throws into a sea ofknowledge, crea ting ripples th at obscure the deep causes of deforestation and poverty. This is not to say that these concepts are useless. But they may have only peripheral relevance, and the sincere efforts ofthe many ac­tors who commit themsclves to put them into practice may be wasted or counterproductive (Pollini 2007) if the poli ti cal economy of environmental degradation and poverty and the tradeoffs it generales are not addressed, that is, if this political economy keeps on being maintained by rituals rather than questioned by cognitive efforts.

The end result is that NEAP is still vulnerable in the face of human rights lobbies who could bring into public view the negative socioeconomic impact of its activities on mral livelihoods, while the Malagasy biodiversity remains under threat and the Malagasy people remain poor. Solutions exist to escape this dead end. I will not detail them here, but to say just a few words,2s incentives should be preferred to designs. lncentive systems can include clear and straightfor­ward provisions for both development (subsidies to inigation schemes) and conservation objectives (subsidies to the non­clearing of primary forests). Once such incentive systems were established, extemal designs would not be necessary, as communities wou Id find their own way to maximize their gain. The role of the intemational community would simply be to suppress the tradeoffs between agricultural development

HUMAN ORGANIZATION

and forest conservation, through the payment of subsidies29

that would reconfigure the political economy.

Notes

1These four years include: ( 1) seven continuous months of research fieldwork (June to December 2001) in Ambodilaingo, a remote village located on the forest frontier in the rural municipality of Beforona; (2) frequent short visits (totalling about 36 weeks offieldwork) to this vil­lage and to other villages of the ruralmunicipality of Beforona in order to monitor the activities of a rural development NGO (Children of the Forest), from 2002 to 2007; (3) visits to Il other municipalities in four provinces of Madagascar, from 2002 to 2007, totalling about 10 wceks offieldwork (mostly to conduct rapid rural appraisals); (4) about thrcc years spent in Antananarivo (four years minus the field visits above), in­cluding two years as a technical advisor at the Ministry of Environmen!, Water, and Forests for the project FSP-GDRN (Gestion Décentralisée des Ressources Naturclles-Decentralization of Natural Resources Management), Jinanced by the French cooperation agency. The rcsults of the fieldwork conductcd in Beforona are available in Pollini (2007).

21 was rather a provider of data !o students who came to interview mc in my office.

JMetis knowledgc is knowledge acquired through experience. The lerm can be translatcd by "know-how."

"Translation by Pollini. Original citation in French: "la seule attitude réaliste [est] celle d'une utilisation rationnelle des ressources naturelles, celle-ci englobant nécessairement les impératifs essentiels de la conser­vation afin d'assurer la permanence des ressources."

5Translation by Pollini. Original citation in French: "Ce contraste a engendré, probablement plus qu'ailleurs, une tension entre les partisans de la conservation et ceux du développement."

''Translation by Pollini. Citation in French (translatcd from oral citation in Malagasy by OSIPD 1995): "Nous sommes comme des rats pris aux pièges: nous sommes emprisonnés ici, ct nous ne pouvons pas utiliser toutes ces choses qui sont chez nous."

'Translation by Pollini. Citation in French (!ranslated from oral cita­tion in Malagasy by OSIPD 1995): "Le parc de Ranomafana? Cc n'est plus un Parc National, mais un Parc tàmilial!"

KTranslation by Pollini. Citation in French (translatcd from oral citation in Malagasy by OS! PD 1995): "Cette population ressemble a un bœuf sauvage qu'on veut dompter: on l'attache a un arbre pendant deux semaines sans lui donner à manger; au bout de deux semaines, il est 'cassé', si bien que même un gosse peut sans danger lui caresser les narines et lui tirer les oreilles."

"Translation by Pollini. Original citation in French: "La légitimité sc mesure par le niveau de connaissance du programme ct de ses com­posantes, par le niveau d'intégration du cadre logique dans le milieu bénéficiaire, par la qualité de la perception des actions menées au niveau des composantes."

111This section, contrary to the others, is largcly based on firsthand information, as I was myselfinvolved in the implementation of the plan from February 2004 to February 2006.

111 was member of this group, on behalf of the Malagasy --French cooperation.

121 n German: Deutsche Gesellschaft fiir Technische Zusammenarbcit.

VOL. 70, NO. 1, SPRING 2011

13 Acronym for the French Service d'Appui à la Gestion de l'Environnement (Environmental Support Service), a Malagasy NGO and one of the main contractors for implementing community-based conservation activities ofNEAP.

14Latitude Timber SARL (OSF 2005).

15in Madagascar, trees arc usually eut up manually inside the for­est and transported by people or oxcn to the ncarest road where forest opera tors collee! them.

16Translation by Pollini. Original citation in French: "l'octroi de tout permis minier et de tout permis forestier est suspendu dans les zones réservées comme site de conservation, dont les limites sont annexées au présent atTêté" (GoM 2004a:Artiele 1).

17Translation by Pollini. Original citation in French: "Toute activité d'extraction de ressources ligneuses est prohibée dans les zones réservées comme sites de conservation tels qu'ils sont détï­nis à l'article 2 de l'arrêté interministériel No 19560/2004" (GoM 2004b:Article 1 ). "Les permis d'exploitation ou d'extraction de produits ligneux en cours dans ces zones réservées doivent être suspendus" (GoM 2004b:Article 2).

'"Severa! highly rankcd persons provided me with this information. Other expatliates also got this information from othcr sources.

1''Protccted Landscape/Seascape

211This is, of course, an oversimplification. Organizations who rallicd the OCT "cause" were mostly the French, German, and Japanese coop­eration agcncies, SAGE, UNESCO, and, to a lesser extent, UNDP and WWF. They werc mostly opposed by Conservation International (CI), the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and, to a lcsser extcnt, the DuiTell Wildlife Conservation Trust. TI1e World Bank and USA ID tried to display a more neutra! stance in the debutes but rather leaned toward the vicws of Cl and WCS. Other key Malagasy institutions such as ANGAP and the Ministry ofEnvironment, Water, and Forcsts wcrc sympathctie with the OCT approach but had to follow the views of their major donors.

21 Malagasy Protccted Areas System. ln French: "Système des Aires Protégées de Madagascar."

221 was no longer working for NEAP at that lime but visited Mada­gascar in February 2007, during which my former colleagues providcd mc with the information in the last paragraphs of this section.

23Thc samc problem is raiscd in discussions about the REDD mccha­nism (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Land Degradation). If REDD payments werc made according to a historical baseline, countrics who alrcady stopped or reduced deforestation would receivc lower payments, creating a situation in which the worst past practiccs arc bctter rcwardcd.

14Jnventairc Ecologique Forestier National (National Forest Ecologi­callnventory).

2s Joint Rescarch Institute of the SpaceApplicationlnstitute, lspra, ltaly.

2"Prcsident Ravalomana, who had ruled the country since 2002, pro­nounccd the Durban declaration, but generated heavy popular discontent for scrving his own private interests rather than thosc of his citizens and was ovcrthrown in March 2009. Madagascar has not yct recovcred from this political turmoil.

27 Abbreviation for the French "Communauté de base" (basic com­munity ). COB As werc created by the GELOSE legislation with the aim

83

of transferring management authority to local communities (see Kull 2002 and Pollini 2007 for a more thorough treatment). A ceremony called ritualization is indeed achieved, with involvement of the NGO thal facilitates the process, when management contracts arc signed.

2HSee Pollini 2007 for more details.

29Payments for Environmental Services (PES), which are incrcasingly popular worldwide and in Madagascar, could be, but arc not ncccssarily subsidies. Public moncy given to any actor adopting certain practiccs is a subsidy. Private moncy given to a particular actor who providcs a service is not a subsidy. In the first case, a whole group is eligible to receive the benefit. ln the second case, only a few institutions or indi­viduals may be able to sell the service, which paves the way to resources capture (priva te actors or NGO acquiring rights over resources in order to sell environmental services). The future of the Malagas y forest and its people may depend on which, betwcen the first and the second ap­proach, will be prcferred.

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