Conservation and development problematics in highland Madagascar

At the Ambohitantely Special Reserve in the central highlands of Madagascar, local people?s use of fire and conservation authorities? efforts to change local practice illustrate the complexity of conservation issues. In theory the integrated conservation and development discourse provides a people-oriented context for framing conservation strategies, but in practice it may be no more effective than the ?fortress?-style approach that it replaced. In Ambohitantely local people largely recognize the importance of the forest and they extract little in the way of resources. Development activities in local villages have been unsuccessful due to a simplistic conceptualisation of the ?local community? and socially unacceptable projects. A small number of cattle owners whose use of fire incidentally damages the forest have not been engaged by the ICD plan. The case illustrates that unquestioning imposition of ?politically correct? management strategies may preclude the development of optimal solutions.