Establishment of an IUCN Category V Protected Area

FANAMBY’s activities in the Loky-Manambato territory, ongoing since 1998, have helped initiate the conservation of large forest blocks and build the responsibility of grassroots communities and local authorities in the sustainable management of natural resources and their respective territories. However, consolidating these earlier achievements and having communal authorities and grassroots communities take genuine ownership of coherent territorial management still needs to be achieved, given the growing external pressures on the area (the rehabilitation of National Road No. 5a and its impacts: tourism, trade, timber demand, and transhumance). The threat also remains real in terms of destructive natural resource practices: trafficking of precious timber, which is rarely prosecuted due to insufficient human and material resources within the forestry services, and a lack of involvement from local authorities.

The area also remains isolated, despite belonging to Madagascar’s wealthiest region (SAVA); tracks are only passable eight months of the year. Owing to the low level of socio-cultural and economic exchange, local communities are limited in their ability to make the most of their resources and in the sale of their produce. Agricultural yields remain very low. Technical alternatives to destructive natural resource exploitation practices are currently being identified and implemented.

The objective of this project is to develop and begin implementing a comprehensive territorial planning framework for the Loky-Manambato territory, with appropriate governance for the sustainable management of natural resources, involving communal authorities and grassroots communities. In other words, by the end of the project, the components needed to establish an IUCN Category V Protected Area will be in place.