Contenu du sommaire : Enjeux et moyens d'une foresterie paysanne contractualisée

By outlining the international debate on local management of forest resources, the authors of this volume concerning the Malagasy example of local forest management attempt to address the international debate by pointing out two major observations: objective setting is crucial, and the transfer of management is a strategy defined differently by the various stakeholders. If the objectives of local management contracts are numerous and even contradictory, the conclusions about success or failure of any case study become ambiguous. Numerous objectives also invite stakeholders to define various and often contradictory strategies. One way forward could be to prioritize between objectives, depending on the local context, and then decide on additional funding, when local stakeholders do not gain sufficiently, economically, socially or in institutional terms, from the local management contracts.

Contract-based Forest Management (GCF) in the lands of Betsileo and Tanala, Madagascar : A dissymmetrical system Malagasy policies regarding biodiversity conservation have been renewed since the 1990's through local forms of governance concerning access to natural resources : local transfer contracts, notably the TGRNR (Transfers of Management of Renewable Natural Resources). The transfer of management by contract to the local population, actors forming a COBA or a basic community, has caused a re-definition of conservation territories over regulated spaces devoted to the protection of biodiversity, and, to this end, the re-definition of the kinds of knowledge and practices. Our research bears on the restructuring and reconfiguration process of the territories connected to the creation of forest spaces with community management set up by the management transfers with biodiversity conservation as its objective. It was conducted in four rural territories in the north of the corridor, listed in the territorial redefinition and reconfiguration procedures for the Contract-based Forest Management (GCF).The emphasize in this text is devoted to a description of the dissymmetry, if not asymmetry, in the management transfer contracts at different levels.

What is the place of local forest community management and management contract with local populations in new protected areas. Forest Conservation and Valorization appear as contradictory objectives to the Malagasian Forest Administration. So they must be applied separately on different forest clumps. But it was anywhere proved the impossibility to reconcile these two objectives on the same forest. Secondly in Madagascar, local population generally don't finds any place neither in forest conservation nor in valorization by forest companies. Timber logging in forest concessions by foresters still remain artisanal in Madagascar and without any forest management plan prepared by the forest administration. The malagasian forest legislation was removed in 1996 and 1997 by the law 96-025 who authorized the natural renewable resources management by local communities. This opened a new alternative to forest management based on local population exclusion and repression that has been installed by Forest Administration since 1930. Nevertheless international conservation NGO think that human are the main cause of environmental degradations. Those two alternative forest policies concurrent at different levels of malagasian forest administration :At the State level, conservation and exclusion of local populations are the foundation of environmental policy ;Local forest community management with management contract is claimed by local populations.“Durban vision”, the new environmental policy opened in 2003 by the International Protected Areas Congress and initiating the creation of a lot of new protected areas (NPA) in Madagascar seemed conclude the victory of conservation and exclusion against forest local community management and valorization. But reality is more complex ! The process of new protected areas creation in two comparable regions : the forest corridors of Fandriana – Vondrozo and Ankeniheny – Zahamena shows a large utilization of local forest management transfer procedures to local communities. So the contradiction between conservation – exclusion and local contractual community management with economic valuation is revived. The authors analyze two situations and draw the comparison between the two corridors with ecological and sociological similarity but with management differences. Through many examples involved since 2000, the different combinations of conservation, exclusion, community management and economic valorization are analyzed. The NGO were obliged by a strong social demand to use so frequently the contractual management transfer. All the transfer without any economic valorization of forest products by local communities are not sustainable beyond the effective intervention of NGO. The transfers with economic valorization are more complex to install and demand a longer assistance to local communities (for forest management plans and taking account of land tenure realities) but they appear sustainable. Local community management is not a target but a mean to reconcile sustainable biodiversity conservation and local community development by highlighting of forest products that exclusion and repression cannot obtain. Sustainable forest management transfers to local communities ask new questions to the malagasian forest administration : what forest tax system ? What forest products check system ? How to take account of local environmental knowledge and of social forest land tenure systems ? How to imagine an environmental monitoring system adapted not only to protected areas but also to exploited and highlighted forest areas ?

An economic valuation of the Communal management forestry
Two complementary theoretical approaches enabled to analyze the efficiency of the communal management of South-Eastern Malagasy forest resources. One of these, the institution theory, deals with formal and informal resource management rules which are supported by the economy. This latter reveals the way officials take advantage of every type of rule. The aim is to compare the power of these standards by focusing the analysis on the overall monetary gain and its redistribution among the officials. The practice of cut and burn brings up much more lucrative value chains such as corn and charcoal speculations, compared to the communal management. Indeed, this process generates an annual total turnover of 6,768 billion Ariary (2,5 million €), which is three times higher than the management transfer's grant. If the communal management has low redistribution economical power, on the other hand, the practice of cut and burn is much more efficient as it enables to generate an income that is redistributed by the way the market works, and provides solutions to the problems of starvation areas. The management transfers viability cannot be guaranteed without improving local community financial independancy by sensitization and also by the suggestion of new economical solutions.

Thinking development while signing a forest contract : an active version of Gelose contract in the rural municipality of Merikanjaka (District of Majakandriana). Merikanjaka is the rural municipality where was signed the first forest management contract in the central madagascan Highlands. The paper emphasizes the importance of history to understanding the Gelose (local guaranteed management) dynamics : local populations, the Andrianefintany, commit themselves to the management transfer in order to be acknowledged of their social legitimacy over the forest. However their own organization by lineage and lines distinguishes some groups with unequal attributions, which is potentially a seed of discords. Otherwise, the paper highligths the fact that the forest is no longer a simple natural resource as it is used to serving other purposes : the communities adhere to the contract on the institutional level to be accepted for later economic support from outside. The communities' committment to the management transfer is henceforth expecting other types of support than those exclusively pertaining to conservation.