Dynamique institutionnelle des transferts de gestion dans le corridor Fandriana - Vondrozo

Abstract

Ten years after their creation, the operation of the community-based natural resource management policy named ‘transfert de gestion’ – the 1996 GELOSE law (applied to any kind of natural resources), and the 2001 GCF decree (only applied to forests) - remains little understood. The forest corridor linking Ranomafana and Andringitra National Parks has been extended south, and since 2006 the Fandriana - Vondrozo Corridor has been established as a new protected area within the Madagascar Protected Area System. Eighty - two sites of transfert de gestion have been created since 2001 in the Fandriana - Vondrozo Corridor and RandriamahaleoIIIare managed by local community associations named COBA. Management is determined by law but is locally adapted to each site. We analyze the dynamic of the community forest management system using six variables and 19 modes: year of creation (five modes), legal form of management (two modes), locality (two modes), principal NGO partners (five modes), management objective (two modes), and surface area of the transferred site (three modes). There are four institutions in charge of forest management: local community associations (COBA), which manage the forest in their territory; the Forest Service (Eaux et Forêt) representing the State, which controls this management; the commune, the smallest decentralized unit of the State, which manages the whole communal territory including forests; and NGOs, which facilitate the process. In order to investigate institutional tendencies, the sites of transfert de gestion are analyzed using Multiple Correspondence Analysis. The sites are distributed in the first two factorial plans with percentage variance of 18.5 % and 15.8 % according to their objectives: 1) pure conservation, and 2) economic development. Three types of NGO are distinguished by the form and duration of their support to COBA. The NGOs with greatest weight in the process are those which support the transfert de gestion with economic compensation. A typology of each commune was defined as a function of the types of support provided by NGOs to COBA. The ratio of transferred area to commune area provides a measure of the importance that the commune gives to COBA. The operation of this four - institution management system is weakened by the permanent changes in the Forest Service structure and, more generally, by any institutional failure. The range of institutions involved, however, provides an insurance for sustainable management