The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development and Madagascar National Parks (MNP) are partnering to support Protected Areas candidates to obtain the IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved Areas status. FAPBM, through Ranto Randriantsoa, Grants Officer, joined the initiative in November 2022 by providing support to a workshop aimed at accelerating the process. The two-day seminar focused on inventorying Madagascar’s protected areas regarding the Green List criteria, identifying support needs, and defining a roadmap to support candidate sites and the Expert Assessment Group for the Green List (EAGL).
IUCN Green List of protected areas
The IUCN Green List of Protected and Conserved areas standards is organized into four components of successful nature conservation in protected and conserved areas. The three baseline components are Good Governance, Sound Design and Planning, and Effective Management. They sustain the fourth component of Successful Conservation Outcomes. Seventeen criteria and indicators support the four elements which are used to measure achievement.
Protected areas that commit to achieve IUCN Green List status must demonstrate and maintain the three-step Standard. The first step consists in entering the Application Phase and conducting a self-assessment. This is followed by the Candidate phase, during which protected areas are evaluated by an EAGL and an impartial reviewer. Madagascar EAGL was established in 2018 and includes seven trained and accredited experts. If successfully completed, the second phase leads to accreditation. Under the Green List last stage, a five-year reassessment alternates with the mid-term assessment. In each Phase, stakeholders’ views and consensus are sought to inform the area’s ongoing performance.
Green List, the recognition of Madagascar to sustainably manage its biodiversity
FAPBM 2022-2026 Strategic Plan requires the institution to provide technical and financial support to protected areas managers in their efforts to be included in the IUCN Green List. Indeed, establishing a sound management framework is vital to ensure that all the technical, financial, human, and organizational resources mobilized in favour of Madagascar’s protected areas network (SAPM) can produce genuine impacts. To improve the management of funded protected areas, FAPBM promotes the adoption of technical (information systems, databases on biodiversity, people impacted, etc.), financial and organizational management tools that comply with the standards of a protected area.
Madagascar is actively engaged in the Green List process, as the country expressed a strong ambition by committing 15 sites out of 123 to the Green List program at the 2021 World Conservation Congress : Nosy Hara, Ankivonjy, Ankarea, Ambodivahibe, Lokobe, Nosy Tanihely, Makira, Isalo, Amber Mountain, Analamazaotra, Maromizaha, Analalava, Andringitra, Mantadia, and Mangoky Ihotry Wetlands Complex. Thirteen of them are funded by FAPBM. As IUCN Green List Standard recognizes the efforts made on the ground, FAPBM believes it will uncover new sources of income, leading to the financial empowerment of those protected areas.
The December workshop’s outcome identified support needs to achieve the Green List Standard. The fifteen sites are under the application phase, and self-assessment is expected to deliver in the early second trimester of 2023. Until then, capacity building and mentoring will be provided to the candidates’ sites manager.
This commitment is key to the Madagascar’s contribution to Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Frameworks negotiated in December 2022 in Canada.
