Month: February 2023

Local communities’ mobilization is quite challenging for protected area managers. This is starting to be no longer the case at the Montagne des Français, a SAGE site, as local communities voluntarily preserve the protected area. SAGE, the protected area manager, has been able to change their behaviour by calling out strategic communication and conservation rewards system. By encouraging voluntary sustainable management of natural resources, manager save money to invest significantly in development activities. Raising awareness through testimonies “To raise communities awareness, explaining nature’s benefit is not enough. Conservation issues must be illustrated by testimonies of people with whom the communities identify. I exposed the consequences of the non-sustainable use of forests, sharing the case of people from Ivonona commune, located 30 km from Antsiranana. In 2014, those people championed in charcoal production. Two years later, following the forest loss, water had become scarce, and communities had to purchase water in Antsiranana. …

FAPBM is proud to have supported Vahatra Association in publishing The New Natural History of Madagascar. The two volumes were officially presented by Professor Steven Goodman on 3 February at the Malagasy Academy. The recipes of Madagascar’s exceptional biodiversity «Separated from Africa’s mainland for tens of millions of years, Madagascar has evolved a breathtaking wealth of biodiversity, becoming home to thousands of species found nowhere else on the planet. The New Natural History of Madagascar provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date synthesis available of this island nation’s priceless biological treasures. Now fully revised and expanded, this beautifully illustrated compendium features contributions by more than 600 globally renowned experts who cover the history of scientific exploration in Madagascar, as well as the island’s geology and soils, climate, forest ecology, human ecology, marine and coastal ecosystems, plants, invertebrates, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. This invaluable two-volume reference also includes detailed discussions of …

FAPBM has invited actors of the Protected Areas System of Madagascar to the semi-annual meeting of the Coalition for Private Investments in Conservation, or CPIC, on 17 January. Capital flows in conservation finance: The impacts of the Global Biodiversity Framework CPIC is an international coalition of companies and NGOs whose main objective is to scale up investments in conservation. This was a hybrid international meeting, with online participants and only three face-to-face hubs, hosted by WWF in Washington DC, South Pole in London, and FAPBM in Antananarivo. The meeting was opened from the Antananarivo hub by Frank Hawkins, Chairman of the CPIC Executive Committee. In part 1, the meeting addressed the impacts of Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) on conservation finance. The GBF announces a new era of conservation finance as it encourages resource mobilisation by all actors, especially the private sector. As a prelude to the meeting, Frank Hawkins …

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 …

Madagascar experts from conservation organizations Asity Madagascar, DELC, MNP, and MNHN created a platform to protect important areas in Boeny region on 28 October. Supported by FAPBM, the platform’s mission is to integrate protected areas with sustainable regional development. The platform will advocate growing support for protected areas and their neighboring communities at multiple levels. Boeny Region has six protected areas: Antrema, Belemboka Bombetoka, Ankarafantsika, Mahavavy Kinkony Complex, Baly Bay, and Namoroka, which provide key ecosystem services for the local people and the region. To name a few: Boeny’s protected areas values Antrema provides the raw materials used locally for basketry, which is the primary income-generating activity for local women. Baly Bay is a water reservoir important for rice cultivation and a pool of fisheries resources. The “raffia zone” raw materials provide different products, generating income for local people. In Bombetoka Belomboka, the Avicennia marina species provides shelter for silkworms …

Herinirina Andriatiana joined FAPBM is one of the new staff members who joined the FAPBM team in 2022. Graduated of the Institut National des Sciences Comptables et de l’Administration d’Entreprises, he brings to FAPBM his strong experience within  projects and non-governmental organizations. Before joining the FAPBM’s finance department, he had worked for Madagascar National Parks, one of the managers financed by FAPBM. He successively held the position of Accountant, Coach Accountant, Head of Support and Accounting Orientation and Accountant of the “Project of Climate Resilience through the Preservation of Biodiversity”. He explains his passion for nature: “Having realized the harmful effects caused by pollution, I decided to orient myself and evolve professionally in the environmental sector in order to bring my contribution in the preservation of nature which, in my opinion, must be considered as a duty for each of us. Indeed, to protect the environment is to preserve humanity and its …