By Sanda Anjara Rakotomalala
After months of preparations, our team finally resumed the activities to pursue the establishment of the Community Management Agreement (or CGC) in the Itremo Massif Protected Area (PA) this September. Our team is now accompanying the two parties involved in the agreement (the PA manager and local communities) through the second stage of the CGC process by building their capacities to negotiate the CGC together.
The activities resumed with a long road trip. First stop: Ambositra, where we met with the core team of Kew Royal Botanical Gardens Madagascar in charge of managing Itremo. As an impartial mediator, our team will accompany the PA manager and the local communities in building their capacities to better negotiate the CGC. That day-long meeting started with recalling basic principles and guidelines regarding the CGC and equity in PA management. We then discussed in depth the challenges that Itremo and Kew’s team are facing in terms of governance and management and started exploring solutions through the CGC process.
Our discussions brought up the importance of PAs having the right tools and support to determine their rights and duties and those of the local communities in light of current legislation and the specific context of their PA.
MiRARI accompanying Kew’s teams during their first internal meeting in Ambositra
The one-day workshop was very enlightening as the PA manager didn’t shy away from exposing the challenging issue they are facing in both enforcing conservation rules and ensuring local livelihoods are not harmed by the restrictions. They are also very much approving of the idea that conservation can only be effective if it has local support and are very keen to sit down with communities and negotiate the terms of the CGC.
After Ambositra, we then headed to the the villages to carry on our engagement with local communities surrounding Itremo PA.
Entry of Maharivo’s village with a picturesque view
To follow up with the mass information sessions of last February, we met with the communities again for a reminder shot about the CGC process. It was rewarding to see that communities’ members remembered us and the CGC, in one way or another. Some recalled it through the logos on the announcement poster, some through our team’s now familiar faces, and some through the coffee breaks.
The community gathering for the internal meeting in Amborompotsy
The purpose of the visit was also to give them a foretaste of the multiple community internal meetings they will need to have. Thus, we shaped it into a mock community meeting. The first part of the meeting consisted of breakout groups where they discussed the rights and duties to be put on the negotiation table, with legit chairman and secretaries. We then assisted them in selecting their representatives.
Group work in Amborompotsy
Group work in Ifasina
Group work in Itremo
Kids telling the stories on the CGC poster to each other in Ifasina while adults are busy meeting
To best represent and defend the interests of their communities, the representatives ought to be outspoken, persuasive, have a decent level of literacy, and above all trustworthy and accepted by the whole community. While preparing for this trip, one of our main concerns was how to select the local representatives in such a way that is democratic, doesn’t favour elites, and results in people that fit the criteria, while respecting the usual way locals designate people to represent them. Taking time to explain the roles and criteria of the representatives at the beginning of the meeting proved fruitful as communities promptly came up with their own election process to fit the goal.
Votings in Belitsaka, Itremo, Ifasina, Amborompotsy, Maharivo
On the adventure side of things, this time the weather and the road finally were in our favor to reach Maharivo, which was the only village missing during our previous activities in Itremo. The scenery looked out of this world, from pristine natural pools to seemingly desolate horizon dotted by bright yellow pachypodiums, rocky mountains and scattered gallery forests. Towards Maharivo, we flirted with vertiginous mountain heights right before the rough and dreaded descent of Andalandahy (literally meaning men’s path). The thrill of the adventure was then replaced by the charm of a newly reached village. No wonder why Itremo was set under the protected landscape category.
Our way back to Antananarivo was marked by the rush and enthusiasm of already preparing to train the freshly elected representatives
Right before the great descent of Andalandahy