Monitoring Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Madagascar:

Ampatsy Forest as a Case Study: Phase II

A Proposal for Small Grants Initiative, Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program

Lisa Gaylord

Problem Statement

Madagascar’s rapid loss of forest land and accompanying environmental impacts, such as the drying up of water sources, are resulting in the irreversible disappearance of the country’s unique biodiversity at an alarming rate. In the eastern rainforest corridor, low-yield shifting cultivation, or tavy, has induced large-scale erosion and rendered the soil increasingly infertile. Moreover, if the rate of forest loss characterized by the past twenty years continues, most of the country’s forests will disappear before the year 2020, causing rural communities to fall even further below the poverty line.

Recently-introduced state and donor-sponsored programs to decentralize natural resource management to rural communities, Gestion Contractualisée des Forêts (GCF) and Gestion Locale Sécurisée (Gelose), aim to reduce tavy through establishing and guaranteeing relative local land tenure. In most cases, they include an initial transfer of resource management for three years, with a potential renewal for an additional ten years (and continual renewals thereafter), should the community successfully manage the resources. Yet, to date, limited evaluation of these decentralization programs has taken place, so we do not know if these programs are influencing tavy rates. The lack of monitoring reflects a global trend, in that many integrated conservation and development projects have not been successful at monitoring (Kremen et al. 1994). This has frustrated some conservationists, leading some to acquire land that prevents a broad spectrum of local people from receiving goods and services from the land. The importance of monitoring the effectiveness of this approach can not be overstated.

In fact, the Malagasy Forest Service has requested that no additional GCF contracts are put in place until the existing ones can be evaluated. Thus, Madagascar’s donor community has just awarded a contract for a general and rapid overview evaluation of the status of GCF and Gelose programs. But, more detailed case study information is desperately needed. So, having developed a preliminary monitoring and evaluation system under the Beahrs Small Grants Initiative in 2003, the Berkeley-DAI/USAID pilot partnership will be in a position to contribute valuable information to this national effort. If supported an additional year, it will be able to test its community monitoring system, help decision-makers identify the critical elements for success and apply lessons learned to other sites, and support institutionalization of monitoring and evaluation by other development organizations and the Malagasy Forest Service.

Project Activities

The proposal for Beahrs Small Grants Initiative funding for 2005 aims to build on the work of Phase I of this project completed in 2004 in several ways. Under the 2003/04 exploratory pilot study, critical factors to GCF success were identified, using the GCF in Ampatsy forest as a case study (see Appendix A). However, to date, the relative importance of these factors has been estimated based on qualitative information. Thus, additional data collection is needed to test the hypothesized relationships between these factors and deforestation rates. An additional year of quantitative data collection, expanded to several villages, should provide sufficient variation to develop a more robust economic model. The goal is to develop a model, which in reflecting the field realities faced by rural farmers, incorporates the critical factors that influence farmers’ decisions to expand tavy. Second, during the pilot study, a list of biological and socio-economic indicators were developed that will now be used to monitor GCF implementation progress (Appendix B).

Third, during the pilot study, a community questionnaire for self-monitoring was developed (Appendix C). During Catherine Corson’s 2003 visit to Madagascar, she and Olga Ramaromanana, Beahrs ELP Alum (2002) who was the Project Director for Phase I, visited with the Ampatsy community to discuss ways of monitoring the community’s management. With additional support, in Phase II Berkeley ELP Alumnus (2001) Lisa Gaylord would work with Ampatsy community leaders to put the community monitoring system in place in 2005. Olga Ramaromanana has changed positions, but will remain as informal project advisor to provide continuity.

Fourth, DAI monitoring staff will collaborate with the Forest Service staff so that both community and institutional monitoring programs respond to the Forest Service monitoring requirements. In this manner, the Forest Service will have the required information to renew community contracts, and donors, communities and the Forest Service will all rely on similar guidelines to assess the success of community-based natural resource management in Madagascar.

Finally, during the pilot study, Geographic Information System (GIS) maps were developed showing tavy rates and locations at the community level for the past several years (see Appendix D). Aerial photography maps were ground-truthed using Global Positioning Systems and community interviews. With good aerial photographs, one can trace the history of the spread of tavy back 30 years. However, additional aerial images are needed to more accurately capture the dynamics of tavy, and the impact of program interventions, particularly GCF. Continued funding will support the purchase of some additional images.

In sum, continued collaboration has five aims: 1) further development of the economic model showing the relative influences of various factors on deforestation rates; 2) use of the developed indicators to measure community-based management progress; 3) implementation of a community-level monitoring system; 4) collaboration with the Forest Service to ensure uniform understanding of how community-based management systems should be evaluated; and 5) additional collection of landscape data on changing tavy rates over time. The primary value-added of the Beahrs Small Grants Initiative support to these priorities is the partnership, which brings together UC Berkeley’s technical expertise in scientific evaluation methodology and DAI/USAID/local staff experience and knowledge in community management. Moreover, it raises awareness of ways to implement a sound evaluation and monitoring system for community based natural resource management in Madagascar.

Study Site

The case study site will continue to be the community of Ampatsy in the commune of Alatsinainy Ialamarina, in the central corridor of Fianarantsoa, which represents a population of 16,000 inhabitants. The community of Ampatsy comprises 123 members. The Ampatsy Forest, an area of 430 hectares, was transferred formally to the grassroot community on July 16 2002 in a GCF contract.

Collaborative Statement

As mentioned above, the collaboration between UC Berkeley and a Madagascar-based development professional provides a unique opportunity to bring together UC Berkeley’s technical expertise and field experience of both a local development organization and the local community. LDI/Chemonics served as that local organization in Phase I. Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI) will assume that role in Phase II.

Beahrs Environmental Leadership Program Alumnus, Lisa Gaylord will succeed Alumnus Olga Ramaromanana as the primary collaborator. Her expertise in monitoring and evaluating field projects, as well as her contacts throughout the development community in Madagascar as a USAID officer add an invaluable dimension.

Dr. Adina Merenlender, Associate Cooperative Extension Specialist and Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Ecosystem Management, ESPM, and Catherine Corson, PhD Student, Division of Society and Environment, ESPM, Berkeley will continue to bring an interdisciplinary expertise in socio-economic and biological monitoring, as well as geographical information systems (GIS), to the project. In line with SGI’s recognition that UC Berkeley graduate students can offer both time and expertise to increase the effectiveness of collaborative research projects, Catherine Corson has coordinated the collaboration for Berkeley. In addition, she will likely conduct her dissertation research in the region where the case study research has taken place, building on some of the spatial, quantitative and qualitative data that would be collected and evaluated under a 2005 Beahrs grant. In turn, her research, which will likely focus on GCF’s ability to secure community land tenure in the presence of competing interests such as migration, as well as mining and forest concessions, will help inform DAI’s and other development organizations’ programs in Madagascar.

Based on their experiences in biological and socioeconomic modeling, UC Berkeley collaborators Adina Merenlender and Catherine Corson will continue to provide a positive critical vision on ways to develop a model, that simply, but accurately reflect the field realities surrounding deforestation.

Connection with Learning Skills Developed During Summer Course at Berkeley

In Phase I, Olga Ramaromanana took advantage of GIS for regional mapping and GPS for site mapping, establishing the effectiveness of GIS to integrate spatial and non-spatial data in these circumstances. As part of the Beahrs summer (2002) ELP program, Adina Merenlender demonstrated some GIS models that integrated physical, biological, and socio-economic information to inform policy scenario development. Following these sessions, Olga Ramaromanana, Adina Merenlender, and Catherine Corson discussed possible improved ways of mapping, monitoring, and modeling LDI’s attempts at locally based forest management programs. This study then builds on the skills developed during the summer course at Berkeley. Olga Ramaromanana, Adina Merenlender, and Catherine Corson have fully briefed Lisa Gaylord who is eminently qualified to assume the principal role for Phase II.

Expected Results and Outputs

The outputs resulting from this process will be:

1) further development of the economic model showing the relative influences of various factors on deforestation rates;

2) collaboration with the Forest Service to develop agreed upon, and methodologically-sound, measurements of GCF success;

3) implementation of a community-level socioeconomic and biological monitoring system that the community can monitor itself to ensure compliance with GCF; and

4) refined spatial data for analysis and incorporation into a spatially explicit model.

Furthermore, as indicated above, the results of the collaboration will feed into a donor-driven effort to evaluate the success to date of GCF and Gelose, as well as the identification of key factors for program success.

Finally, most importantly, support from Beahrs in 2003 provided a platform for continual communication between local community, local institution, and Berkeley collaborators. One of the most significant outcomes has been the intellectual debate advanced via email and in person, during Catherine Corson’s visit to Madagascar. The ongoing discussion brought together complementary perspectives on monitoring community-based natural resource management programs. After the visit, now that both Berkeley and Malagasy partners are similarly familiar with the intricacies of the GCF , additional Beahrs support for another year will undoubtedly catalyze more rigorous debate and innovative solutions to the development challenges facing the collaborators.

Timeline and Duration

The pilot study will commence in March of 2005 and continue for 12 months through the end of February, 2006. Throughout this period, the collaborators will continue to discuss the monitoring and evaluation program via email frequently, as they did last year. Catherine Corson will travel towards the end of this period to Madagascar to work with Lisa Gaylord and other local collaborators to analyze the data, summarize lessons learned, help disseminate the information and decide on potential next steps.

Detailed Budget and Budget Narrative

Funds from SGI are requested to cover material and technical support to the monitoring and evaluation team , round trip travel for Olga Ramaromanana, Mauritius-Madagascar, and Catherine Corson’s expenses to travel to the collaborative research site in Madagascar. Specifically, for DAI, these funds will go toward the costs of field data collection, community monitoring training, and the purchasing of aerial photographs and/or satellite images, as necessary to track tavy in the Ampatsy Forest GCF. For Ms. Corson (doctoral student, Society and Environment, CNR, UC Berkeley) the funds will cover international and in-country travel expenses. She will apply for additional funds from other sources to cover other specific dissertation research expenses.

Thus, we hope that Berkeley will remain committed to the collaboration, at least through its initial implementation phase in 2004 - 5.

Risks

There are limited risks entailed in that the primary purpose is simply to improve the methodology of evaluating community based natural resource management programs in Madagascar. Continued funding from UC Berkeley will encourage locally-based institutions to prioritize implementing a methodologically-sound monitoring and evaluation system in collaboration with the community and the Forest Service. Of course, there are also risks in that the community evaluation program may require a few years of technical assistance to put in place. However, there will likely be additional financial and technical support from both donors and Malagasy organizations in future years should it be needed.

Literature Cited

Kremen, C., Merenlender, A. M. and D, Murphy, 1994. Ecological monitoring: A vital need in integrated conservation and development programs in the tropics. Conservation Biology 8(2):1-10.