Madagascar Creates 1 Million Hectares of New Protected Areas

Global Conservation Fund Provides $1 Million in New Funding

April 2007. For the second time in two years, the Government of Madagascar has created more than 1 million hectares of new protected areas through a visionary policy to save the island-nation’s remaining intact forests.

 

The 15 new protected areas comprise a total of 1,071,589 hectares (4,137 square miles, an area the size of Cyprus, or ½ the size of Wales to use more familiar terminology) and include tropical rainforest, dry deciduous forest, lakes, rivers, limestone caves and other ecosystems that are home to threatened species such as the giant jumping rat and the pygmy mouse lemur, one of the world’s smallest primates. Madagascar has only a fraction of its original forest cover but remains one of the biologically richest places on Earth, with many plants and animals found nowhere else.

President Ravalomanana pledged then to triple Madagascar’s protected territory to a total of 6 million hectares (23,172 square miles). The government created 1 million hectares of new protected areas in December 2005, followed by the latest addition of another 1 million-plus hectares to increase Madagascar’s total protected territory to 3.7 million hectares (14,289 square miles).

 

‘Anyone who says conservation and development cannot work hand-in-hand is wrong,’ President Ravalomanana said. ‘It is important to stress the positive impact biodiversity conservation has on economic development and quality of life.’

Protected areas
The new protected areas comprise three large tracts – the 499,598-hectare (1,929-square-mile) Fandriana-Vondrozo Forest Corridor in the southeast; the 276,836-hectare (1,069-square-mile) Mahavavy-Kinkony Wetlands Complex of lake, river and forest on the northwest coast; and the Menabe Central Forest, 125,000 hectares (483 square miles) of dry deciduous forest in the southwest. Additional protected areas include the remarkable marshlands of Lake Alaotra, home to the world’s only reed-dwelling primate, the Lac Alaotra bamboo lemur, as well as smaller tracts intended to prevent extinctions of local endemic species and create corridors linking other protected regions while preserving watersheds and forest burial grounds of local communities.

 

Threatened species
Many species threatened with extinction occur almost exclusively in the new protected areas, including one of the world’s most threatened primates – the Critically Endangered greater bamboo lemur, along with the crowned sifaka, golden bamboo lemur,Milne-Edwards’ sifaka, ten-striped mongoose, Madagascar sacred ibis, Madagascar flat-shelled tortoise, and the Madagascar big-headed side-neck turtle.

Madagascar’s program is a model for governments of developing nations faced with the choice of exploiting natural resources for a one-time payoff or conserving natural assets so the economy and local communities benefit from them in perpetuity. Other nations opting for conservation and long-term benefits include Costa Rica and Liberia.

‘Madagascar is, in the opinion of many, the highest priority biodiversity hotspot on Earth,’ CI President Russell A. Mittermeier said. ‘President Ravalomanana’s commitment to ample protected area coverage is historic and of global significance. We hope that other leaders in Africa and elsewhere will follow his example and take similar decisive action.’

The unique biodiversity of Madagascar has been under threat for decades from forest destruction, illegal wildlife trade and other problems. Researchers estimate that 90 percent of the original forest cover has disappeared.

Funding
Organizations assisting the government’s protected area program include CI, Association Fanamby, the Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Missouri Botanical Garden, U.S. Agency for International Development, Agence Française de Développement, Fonds Français pour l’Environnnement Mondial, Germany’s KfW Development Bank, and the World Bank.

The next phase in the program calls for bolstering economic benefits for the thousands of local people living in and around the protected areas through ecotourism, ecosystem services contracts, and ecological monitoring initiatives.

The Global Conservation Fund (GCF) created by Conservation International (CI) recently contributed $1 million to the Madagascar Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity and plans to contribute another $2 million this year to help implement and manage new protected areas created under President Marc Ravalomanana’s Durban Vision announced at the 2003 World Parks Congress in South Africa.

To date, GCF has provided $2.2 million to support protected area projects in Madagascar. GCF and the CI-administered Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund also have contributed significantly to the planning and design of new protected areas across the country.