Mention the name of “Madagascar”, and it will undoubtedly evoke discussions about its wildlife, natural richness or, unique flora.

Madagascar’s unique biodiversity derives from the prehistoric break-up of the Gondwana’s supercontinents some 165 million years ago. The late arrival of human settlers and other factors have enabled the evolution and survival of thousands of endemic plants and animal species, of which the lemur – an ancestral primate – is the most emblematic example.

A well-preserved environment is essential for the daily life of Malagasy people and for the long-term economic development of the country. More than 18 million people in Madagascar are dependent on biodiversity for their subsistence needs. Tourism is the third largest source of revenue for Madagascar. The potential growth of ecotourism is enormous.

Yet, the environment is gravely imperilled, and the COVID-19 pandemic has already markedly further exacerbated the pre-existing social and economic vulnerabilities and related tensions, fast forwarding the country to a dramatic point of no return.

In 2018, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) reported that Madagascar had lost 80 per cent of its natural areas and continued to lose an estimated 200,000 hectares annually to deforestation. If forest reduction were to continue at this rate – the report warned – all of Madagascar’s forests could be lost within the next 40 years.

In recent years, a large share of the deforestation constant upward trend – in particular in protected natural areas – has been associated to unmanaged internal migration flows. While internal migration is not a new phenomenon in Madagascar, the patterns of migration have significantly evolved, bringing unprecedented and complex challenges of social cohesion, sustainable economic development, and environmental preservation.

Migration from the Southernmost part of the country used to be temporary, driven largely by men over the period of seasonal “Kere” (drought). But the degradation of environmental conditions – due to the effects of climate change – and the resulting destruction of traditional livelihoods in this arid area of the country has forced individuals and families to search for new livelihoods elsewhere, causing many of them to leave permanently.

These emerging and unmanaged patterns bring challenges both in areas of origin of the migrants – where depletion of the working-age population (some villages in the Androy region, where much of the migrants originates, have seen up to 30 per cent of their population migrate) – threatens social cohesion and further compounds local socio-economic development prospects ; and in areas of destination of migrants.

In areas of destination of migrants, the challenges are in stark display in and around the protected natural area of Menabe Antimena (Aire Protégée Menabe Antimena, or APMA) and its surroundings.

Morondava, the burgeoning principal city of the Menabe region, is a popular stop on international tourists’ itinerary. The tidy coastal city abuts one of the country’s largest mangrove ecosystem, and the much-photographed UNESCO-world heritage site “Allée des baobabs” is a short drive away. The APMA itself, is one of the country’s largest remaining patch of primary dry forest and hosts considerable endemic biodiversity.

But only some kilometres further into the APMA, where the practicable roadways end, and hidden from tourists’ view, in the heart of the protected area, an uncontrolled and clandestine exploitation of the forest is taking place, reversing natural conservation efforts and threatening social cohesion and peace.

Thousands of migrants originating from the South of the country have set up itinerant encampments and practice – for lack of alternatives – slash and burn agriculture, satisfying a boom for demand of maize consumption and peanut exports. The village of Lambokely, situated in the APMA, is emblematic of these realities. It had 64 inhabitants in 2001 – in 2018, it accounted for 20,000, amongst which 85 per cent of migrants.

The practice, which consists in clearing and burning down a parcel of forest to cultivate maize or peanuts, is highly damaging to the soil. The soil productivity typically only lasts two consecutive years, leading migrants to burn down ever-increasing tracts of land to meet their production outputs, searing ever-more through the APMA.

This has created significant intercommunal tensions and social conflicts between migrants and local resident populations, as well as between groups of migrants – which have been increasingly pitched along ethnic lines opposing the “Antandroy” of the South to the “Sakalava” of the West. Conflicts over resources, including water have flared. Difficult access to basic social services unable to cater to the large influx of migrants has magnified underlying vulnerabilities and governance challenges. This has also further weakened the already frail confidence of the local population towards the authorities, and in particular law enforcement personnel – some of which they accuse to be complicit of the APMA exploitation.

In a display of force, elements of the army have been deployed to the APMA, which led to migrants’ arrests and detentions, further exacerbating tensions as migrants accused some resident communities of having denounced them to the authorities when they only sought a form of livelihoods, and causing retaliation.

The social impacts are profound, and multifaceted. Women – both women migrants and women in resident communities – are particularly vulnerable to the effects of social conflicts, and to the impacts of ongoing pressures on limited local resources.

The evolving migration patterns have also tacitly redefined some of the roles and social hierarchy traditionally associated to men and women, as women migrants have had to occupy key functions as resellers and traders – and ventured in businesses and livelihood opportunities until then seen by men as marginal or risky – but which have proved valuable and scalable alternatives to damaging agricultural practices.

The complex reality has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. While only some 1300 cases of COVID-19 where officially confirmed as of mid-June 2020 in Madagascar – of which 1 case only in the Menabe region –, the global domino unravelling of travel restrictions, and the subsequent closing of the country’s own international borders on 19 March 2020, has annihilated any hope for a successful touristic season for 2020 and possibly beyond.

With more than 70% of the population living on less than 2 USD a day and hanging by a thread, the social and economic impact has been immediate, forcing resident populations that did not previously engage in slash and burn agriculture to recourse to it for survival.

The Digital Geography Lab at the University of Helsinki – an interdisciplinary research team focusing on spatial big data analytics for fair and sustainable societies – studied satellite-based data on active fires made openly available by NASA to see if there are signals of increased human activity inside the protected natural areas in various countries of the world.

In a preliminary results assessment for Madagascar, the Digital Geography Lab provided evidence that the protected natural areas of the country are experiencing rapid increases in human induced fires during the COVID-19 crisis. According to the assessment, through March 2020, there was an 81 per cent increase in fires detected in protected areas compared to the same time period in 2019, with the Western dry forests of Madagascar being the most affected so far.

The COVID-19 crisis brings stakeholders such as authorities (at central, regional, and local levels), migrants, local communities, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) fast forward to the point of irreversibility, and reduces the window of opportunity to bring forward solutions.

Under the “Addressing threats to peaceful coexistence and human security through women

migrants and women in migration-affected communities in Madagascar” (or REAP) project funded by the United Nations (UN) Peacebuilding Fund, IOM – the UN Migration Agency, along with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), are working since early 2020 to bring innovative solutions to the issues encountered.

The Peacebuilding Fund is the UN’s financial instrument of first resort to sustain peace in countries or situations at risk or affected by violent conflict. The Fund works across pillars and supports integrated UN responses to fill critical gaps; respond quickly and with flexibility to peacebuilding opportunities; and catalyse processes and resources in a risk-tolerant fashion.

The REAP project is one of the initiatives supported by the Peacebuilding Fund, under Fund’s investment portfolio of some 12,5 Million USD between 2020 and 2021 in the country. The REAP project is funded under the Gender Promotion Initiative (GPI), which is an expression of the Fund’s commitment to inclusive peacebuilding, and to support innovative projects focused on gender equality and women’s empowerment with the potential for catalytic effects and peacebuilding outcome.

Previous research and work have shown that the protected areas have the capacity to curb deforestation. While building on the valuable work conducted by NGOs and CSOs in and around the APMA, the REAP project pursues a decidedly novel approach centered on sustainable migration management, while leveraging the emerging women-led sustainable business and alternate livelihoods to damaging agricultural practices.  

The REAP project acknowledges that most internal migrants – if they had the opportunity to do so – would rather opt to remain in their region of origin and lead meaningful lives there. The project therefore promotes for the first time an integrated approach with concurrent community stabilization, social cohesion, and peacebuilding interventions in one primary region of destination of migrants – and in one primary region of origin of migrants.

Through an established network of NGOs and CSOs, and alongside national, regional, and local authorities, and communities; IOM and UNDP implement activities that contribute to reducing the inflows of new migrants arriving in the Menabe by alleviating – in the Androy region – the pressures that force individuals and families into migration when it isn’t their first choice; accompany migrants and communities in the Menabe to diversify economic livelihoods and reduce tensions and conflicts that threaten social cohesion and peace; and to equip authorities with the means and tools to pro-actively monitor, analyze, and manage internal migration trends.