New CEPF Funds Boost Madagascar Conservation

The uncertainties raised by the March coup that ousted the country’s president resulted in the temporary pullout of some donors who provide aid to residents and support environmental conservation.

Reports of increases in illegal logging and poaching have raised alarm about the toll of political instability on the country’s natural resources and the people who rely on those resources for their basic needs.

Believing that it is as important now as it has ever been to provide support to the people and biodiversity of Madagascar, the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) recently launched its second round of funding in the country, authorizing $1.4 million in grant funds to help sustain the conservation gains made possible by its previous $4.25 million investment.

The funding will go to scaling up programs that support community conservation action and sustainable livelihoods in priority corridors; launching a social marketing and awareness campaign at local and national scales that highlights the value and the importance of sustainable natural resource management; and improving the capacity of community-based natural resource management by sharing lessons learned from initiatives in Madagascar and elsewhere.

“Human pressure on the biodiversity and the environment in general have increased since the beginning of the political crisis in Madagascar,” said Haingo Nirina Rajaofara, director of partnerships for Conservation International-Madagascar, one of the organizations receiving CEPF consolidation funding. “The cancellation or suspension of [other] funding resulted in the suspension of environment-related activities that mobilized local communities or that offered communities alternatives to unsustainable practices that put pressure on natural resources.”

With CEPF funding, CI-Madagascar is implementing a small grants program, known as the Node Program, which provides communities in and around protected areas with the means to implement activities that contribute to improved livelihoods and to biodiversity conservation, Rajaofara said. “The Node Program is very important because it not only fills a critical need in terms of resources, it also allows us to mobilize a large number of community-level actors and therefore achieve widespread impact for conservation and for human well-being,” he said.

Another of the organizations receiving consolidation funding is Madagascar-based Association Fanamby, which also received funding through CEPF’s initial investment in the country for projects that included work with communities on natural resource management and conservation of Endangered species.

“Things are so uncertain in Madagascar these days it’s very difficult to be optimistic,” said Serge Rajaobelina, secretary general of Fanamby, who recently gave an update to Conservation International and CEPF staff on conservation activities and illegal timber and poaching incidents in Madagascar. He cited the recent discovery of $50 million in illegal wood hauls at a Malagasy port, and the arrest of several people caught poaching crowned lemurs to sell to restaurants as indicators of heightened pillaging of protected areas.

Like CI-Madagascar, Fanamby emphasizes engaging Malagasy communities in managing protected areas and achieving other conservation goals while helping them build sustainable livelihoods, an emphasis it brought to CEPF-support activities in the Northeast and Western parts of Madagascar during CEPF’s initial investment.

“It is important that we continue to work with the communities,” said Rajaobelina.

Under CEPF’s consolidation investment, Fanamby will undertake an in-depth assessment of the most effective approaches taken by partners working with government and district authorities to establish Natural Resource Reserves over the last six years in seven sites. Based upon this analysis and lessons learned from these efforts, Fanamby will identify the most successful approaches and the baseline socioeconomic and ecological data required for participatory protected area management.

Also among the organizations receiving CEPF consolidation support is Arboretum d'Antsokay, located near the town of Toliara in southwest Madagascar. Its mission is the conservation of the plants of the Spiny Forest in southwest Madagascar. The Arboretum will use the support for education initiatives, including creating an education center, activities for school children and teachers at the arboretum, and recruiting qualified local educators and communicators to communicate the importance of plant diversity and the importance of sustainable natural resources management.

“Education and awareness activities are important because Madagascar possesses a biodiversity unique in the world, yet it is under pressure from different human activities,” said Andry Petignat, managing director of the arboretum. “It is important to raise public awareness on Madagascar’s unique biodiversity and promote the sustainable use of natural resources and the socioeconomic and conservation impacts that will enable local communities to participate in forest management that benefits their livelihoods.”