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Z.L. Urech & J.P. Sorg 2010. Taking into account local people’s livelihood systems for a better management of fragments
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Taking into account local people’s livelihood systems for a better
management of forest fragments
Zora Lea Urech * & Jean-Pierre Sorg
Groupe de foresterie pour le développement, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
Abstract
During the last few decades, a large extent of tropical rain forest has been cleared in the East of
Madagascar through agricultural activities. Larger cohesive forest massifs are increasingly
fragmented and forest fragments of various sizes remain in a landscape mosaic dominated by
agricultural patches. Until now, only little is known about how these fragments are perceived by
the local population and what role they play in the local livelihood systems. We therefore tried
to get a holistic understanding about the human-forest interface in this fragmented landscape
and based our methodology on the sustainable livelihood approach. The research has been
conducted in four villages which differ in their distance to the cohesive forest massif and
therefore in their access to forest resources. We recognized that the perception of forest
fragments and their importance for the local population changed with increasing distance to the
forest massif. Not only they became more important to satisfy people’s daily needs, but they
also had an increasing potential to cause conflicts between villagers. For a possible
improvement of forest management designs, we should therefore take into account what role
forest fragments play in local livelihood systems and how they can vary with changing access to
forest resources.
1 Introduction
On a global level, the planet is continuously loosing its original tropical forests. Most tropical
landscapes not only suffer from deforestation but also from fragmentation, which often leads to
decreasing vitality of remaining forest patches (Shvidenko et al. 2008). This is also the case in
Madagascar, where forests are increasingly fragmented by agricultural activities such as slashand-burn
cultivation (Harper et al. 2008). Nevertheless, these fragments are of increasing
importance, not only for the diversity of mosaic landscapes but also for the local inhabitants in
the vicinity of these landscapes (Pfund et al. 2006). Currently, in Madagascar forest resources
are managed without separation between larger forests and fragments and without a broad
consideration of local people’s livelihood strategies. We therefore aimed to explore the effective
importance of forest fragments in local livelihood systems with our research. We combined
quantitative and qualitative analyses about opportunities resulting from forest resources for
people’s livelihood and the local perception about the importance of forested landscapes. To
explore the role of forested landscapes, we divided them into two different categories; massif
and fragments. This short paper will present two aspects of the role of forest landscapes in local
people’s life; the role of monetary income and the changing perception of forest fragments
related to the distance to large non-fragmented forests.
* Corresponding author. Phone: +4144 632 49 92
Email address: zora.urech@env.ethz.ch
Forest Landscapes and Global Change-New Frontiers in Management, Conservation and Restoration. Proceedings of the IUFRO Landscape Ecology
Working Group International Conference, September 21-27, 2010, Bragança, Portugal. J.C. Azevedo, M. Feliciano, J. Castro & M.A. Pinto (eds.)
2010, Instituto Politécnico de Bragança, Bragança, Portugal.