Space Control and Natural Resources Management in Rural Areas (South-West of Madagascar)

Abstract

"The south-west rural area of Malagasy was confronted in the twenty last years with the opening of the external markets, the amplification of the migration and the agrarian densification. The competition between activities in contracted and fragile spaces led lineage groups to retire with themselves, to fix the access to spaces and the use of the natural resources.

"In a context of exacerbation of land conflicts which reveals the weakness of the social regulation, the essential question is the integration of the migrant communities in the local institutions and their participation in the management of the natural environment.

"The environmental control promoted by the malagasy authorities with the support of the donors is implicitly based on the concepts of gouvernance and patrimoniality. Accordingly the coordination of the actors and the institutional negotiation governing the allowance and the allocation of natural resources suppose conditions of transparency and legitimacy and the taking into account the dependence between man and nature and the social dynamics at the local level."