Local agency, involvement and initiative in biodiversity conservation in Ranomafana National Park, Madagascar
Marketta Vuola
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2021042718439
Tiivistelmä
Biodiversity conservation, as human activity, is inherently political.
Attempts to preserve species and habitats with strict Protected Areas in
the Global South often take place in already inhabited regions.
Conservation has been often externally imposed on the local, rural
communities, resulting in deprivation of their livelihoods and breaking
up of their natural resources management traditions, but also in local
opposition that threatens conservation outcomes. However, as rural
livelihoods depend directly from their surrounding ecosystems, rural
communities and conservation planners are argued to have substantial
common interests.
This study tries to understand the relationship between local
communities and conservation authorities in order to create knowledge on
how they could form partnerships and work together for natural
resources management. This case study took place is Ranomafana National
Park in South-Eastern Madagascar where several villages were visited in
order to gain knowledge of conservation from the point of view of local
communities. The case study follows ethnographic approach using
qualitative, semi-structured interviews as the principal method of data
collection. Employing a political ecology approach and looking at the
institutional arrangements guiding conservation at the local, national
and global levels and across formal and informal spheres, this study
looks at the power relations in the current forms of co-management and
the social impacts they have at the local level. Finally it tries to
find out if any form of partnership is formed; if local people are able
and willing to manage their natural resources in cooperation with
conservation authorities.
Although conservation has significant negative impacts on local
livelihoods in Ranomafana region, in practice community participation to
decision-making is very limited and the local people find it hard to
get their voice heard. The results of the case study indicate that the
main obstacle for co-management is the failure to respect the rights of
local communities to equitable treatment, to recognition as
stakeholders, and to participation in decision-making. The feeling of
being disrespected creates resentment and mistrust towards conservation
authorities. In these circumstances, economic incentives offered do not
support community empowerment but rather create dependence from external
help. Co-management activities can also enforce the existing
inequalities at the local level if only the more powerful segments of
communities are included. The case study also shows that local
communities are important actors in conservation, able to challenge it –
or support it if they view the rules as legitimate – but the actual
community self-organising for conservation requires at least some
authority over their surrounding ecosystem.
Kokoelmat
- Rinnakkaistallenteet [19207]