Abstract
As a global diversity hotspot, Madagascar serves as a test country for new global environmental policies such as Community-based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) and Biocultural Community Protocols (BCP). Both are community-based tools and stem from the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol. BCPs are more recent and are part of the legal framework of access and benefit sharing (ABS). Some kind of written charters whereby communities codify or specify the conditions of access to their resources and associated knowledge, BCPs are also repositories of traditions and customary rules relating to the management of their tangible and intangible heritage. According to their promoters, BCPs would make it possible to strengthen decentralization of resource management, in particular by the furtherance of communities’ right to self-governance. Against this backdrop, BCPs held out hopes of a shift of paradigm in community-based conservation. While conventional CBNRM keeps communities under the control of the State, BCPs would allow them to enjoy sovereignty over their resources and associated knowledge. Focusing on the case of the communities of Mariarano and Betsako, both located in the northwest of the island, where BCPs and CBNRM have been coexisting since 2015, this article shows the negative effects of the overlay of theses tools on the community. They have modified local and customary structures for managing space and resources, as shown by the ‘legal personification’ of community institutions, which reflects the plans of the state and donors to make these communities more ‘legible’.
Presenters
Manohisoa RakotondrabePostdoc, Centre de Recherches Juridiques, University of Grenoble Alpes, Isère, France
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Madagascar, Community Based Ressource Management, Biocultural Community Protocols, Sovereignity
