Section 3: Protected Areas of Madagascar and Other Areas of Biological Importance
The basic system of protected areas in Madagascar was established in 1927. It includes National Parks, Strict Nature Reserves, Special Reserves and Private Reserves (Figs. 2,3). Reserves have been managed traditionally by Madagascar's Ministry of Water and Forests (of the Water and Forestry Department), with assistance from the Ministry of Universities (formerly the Ministry of Higher Education) in several cases. In December 1990, a National Association for the Management of Protected Areas (ANGAP) was created to coordinate management of protected areas with the Government of Madagascar and national and foreign operators (Greve, 1991). Approximately 2% of Madagascar's land area is included in the protected area system.
Legislation establishing National Parks was passed in 1958 and 1962. Madagascar's National Parks are open to visitation by the public but access is controlled. Rights of access and permission to use certain forest products may be provided to villagers but, again, restrictions are imposed. There are six National Parks at present: Montagne d'Ambre, Isalo, Mantady, Ranomafana and two at Mananara-Nord, Verezanantsoro and Nosy Atafana. A seventh is being planned for the Masoala Peninsula.
Legislation establishing the category of Strict Nature Reserve was passed in 1966. Access to these reserves is limited to officials of the Water and Forests Department and to researchers who have obtained permission from the appropriate government ministries. There are currently 11 Strict Nature Reserves in Madagascar. A twelfth, on the Masoala Peninsula, was degazetted in 1964 and is now an unprotected classified forest.
Various laws have been passed to establish Special Reserves in Madagascar. In most cases, these reserves have been created to protect a particular species of plant or animal. Permission must be obtained to enter Special Reserves, but allowances are made for certain traditional rights of use. There are currently 23 Special Reserves, only some of which are guarded by officials of the Water and Forests Department.
In addition to the system of officially protected areas, provision is also made for private reserves in Madagascar. Three such reserves currently exist, one at Analabe north of Morondava in the southwest, one at St. Luce on the east coast north of Fort Dauphin, and one at Berenty in the far south to the east of Fort Dauphin.
Table 4 Protected Areas of Madagascar
Figure 2. National Parks, Nature Reserves and Special Reserves of Madagascar
Figure 3. Private Reserves, Classified Forests and other sites of biological importance in Madagascar.
Table 5 Lemur Taxa Present in Protected Areas of Madagascar
In their report to the World Wide Fund for Nature on conservation and protected areas in Madagascar, Nicoll and Langrand (1989) describe 18 sites of biological interest (referred to as Areas of Biological Importance in this document), including Classified Forests and buffer zones surrounding Biosphere Reserves. Subsequent to Nicoll and Langrand's report, the status of two sites of biological interest, Mananara-Nord and Ranomafana, has been upgraded to create three National Parks, (Verezanantsoro, Nosy Atafana and Ranomafana) the first two representing the core area for Madagascar's first Biosphere Reserve.
In this section, we present information on several other areas of biological importance (Fig. 3), including their location within Madagascar's biogeographic regions, the potential size of proposed protected areas and the lemur taxa reported.
The first Biosphere Reserve in Madagascar was established in 1989 at Mananara-Nord. It contains a strict conservation zone with the status of a National Park (23,000 ha terrestrial and 1,000 ha marine) surrounded by a buffer zone which is not legally protected. However, natural resources in the buffer zone are meant to be used on a sustainable basis.
Classified Forests are created by individual ministerial decrees and with the involvement of local authorities. Exploitation of these reserves is illegal, exceptions being made only for the use of certain traditional forest products. There are approximately 160 Classified Forests in Madagascar, covering an area in excess of 2,500,000 ha, but protection of these lands is not necessarily permanent. Indeed, it is often weak to nonexistent.
Note: Of the large number of Classified Forests established in Madagascar, only a few are referred to in this document. Those listed below have been described by Nicoll and Langrand (1989) as sites of biological interest and are believed to be of significance to lemur conservation.
Table 6 Lemur Taxa Present in Unprotected Areas of Biological Importance
