December 5, 2014 — The president of Madagascar, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, has pledged to triple his country’s marine protected areas and set up a legal framework to defend local communities’ rights to manage their own fishing grounds.
The framework will formalise existing locally-managed marine areas (LMMAs), which now cover over 7% of Madagascar's waters.
According to Madagascar-based marine conservation organisation Blue Ventures, the announcement, which was made at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s recent World Parks Congress in Sydney, will mean the creation of a 4,300 kilometre-square locally-managed marine protected area across the Barren Isles group of small islands off the west coast of Madagascar.
The Barren Isles area is home to some of the most pristine coral reefs in the western Indian Ocean region, and supports the livelihoods of thousands of small-scale fishers.
Madagascar has already surpassed its pledges made for the 2003 World Parks Congress ‘Durban Vision’ to more than triple the total area of Madagascar’s protected areas, and President Rajaonarimampianina renewed his country’s dedication to protecting one of the world’s few remaining ‘biodiversity hotspots’.
Up to 90 percent of Madagascar’s wildlife cannot be found anywhere else on earth. The fourth-largest island in the world, it is one of the world’s richest biological settings, boasting lemurs, baobabs, rainforest, beaches, desert, a multitude of smaller islands off the main coastline and healthy marine reefs.
“Madagascar has achieved its [Durban] goal, but we can and will do better,” explained President Rajaonarimampianina during his address at a WWF-organised side event. “Our natural capital is one of our greatest assets. This is why we are placing biodiversity and natural resources at the heart of our new national development plan.”
Most of the country's export revenue is derived from the textiles industry, fish and shellfish, vanilla, cloves and other foodstuffs, although the country now has significant prospects in the offshore oil and gas industry.
Read the full story from the Seychelles News Agency