Tourist Visits to Madagascar Help Conserve Some Forests, but Others Suffer: Study Suggests What to Do

Madagascar is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. The island country is well known for its diverse and endangered range of wildlife. This includes over 100 species of lemurs and six species of majestic baobab trees found nowhere else.

The country is also among the world’s poorest. About 80% of its population live below the international poverty line of US$2.15 a day.

Attracting tourist visits to protected areas, such as Analamazaotra-Mantadia National Park, has long been one of Madagascar’s policy priorities. The aim is to channel tourist income towards conserving these areas. Tourist revenue is also supposed to reduce poverty through foreign currency revenue, job creation, and infrastructure development.

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Globally, tourism is a powerful way of generating income. In 2024, travel and tourism represented 10% of the global economy (US$10.9 trillion). In Madagascar, tourism revenue makes up nearly 16.6% of the country’s economy.

We are a group of socio-environmental researchers who investigated the effects of tourist visits on the forests of 40 protected areas across Madagascar. The country’s natural forests shelter its rich, unique and endangered terrestrial biodiversity. An estimated 88% of Madagascar’s biodiversity is dependent on forests. But after decades of high deforestation rates, only 10%-15% of Madagascar’s land is still covered with natural forests.

For our research, we used 20 years of satellite data to study changes in the forests. We combined this with tourism visit counts from each protected area.

We ran statistical tests to see whether tourist numbers had any effect on deforestation in and outside protected areas. We also took into account other factors that could influence forest loss and tourism, like rainfall and population growth.

Before our study, no research had measured across the whole country how tourism in protected areas affects deforestation.

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Madagascar’s protected areas have a three kilometre buffer around them. Our research found that increased tourist visitors have not reduced forests within the protected areas, but have resulted in deforestation in the buffer zones.

There could be two reasons for this. Firstly, some agricultural and pastoral activities, fishing, and other types of activities are allowed within the buffer zone forest. Local people who used to harvest wood or clear forest for agricultural land from the protected area could be shifting this activity to the buffer zone outside. (Firewood and charcoal remain the primary energy source for most communities in Madagascar.)

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Secondly, villages outside protected areas might be clearing forests to accommodate tourists and tourism workers. Maps of forest cover showed that when tourism increased, deforestation increased in the buffer zones and near the entrances to the protected areas (where hotels and restaurants are set up).

We therefore recommend that buffer zones of protected areas be prioritised in Madagascar’s national reforestation programme.

Tourism only shifts deforestation

Madagascar currently has 127 protected areas – about 10% of the country’s land area. The majority were established after the 2003 International Union for Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress. There, the government of Madagascar pledged to increase its protected areas to 10% of the country’s land area.

Major threats to protected areas include land clearing for agriculture, mining, illegal logging, and production of firewood and charcoal. Our study focused on 40 protected areas established before 2003 and managed by Madagascar National Parks. This is because these are the only protected areas for which annual visitor numbers are available.

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In protected areas, a portion of tourist entrance fees are shared with local communities. But it is difficult to know if this is enough money for communities to pay for their needs instead of relying on the forest. Tourist fee income is also not necessarily distributed to people most reliant on forest extraction.

Shifting deforestation to the buffer zone of protected areas is not necessarily a negative outcome for conservation, because it still leaves the protected area intact. Forests within buffer zones are also often intended to support local livelihoods. They are sometimes even of lower conservation value (less biodiverse) than protected forests.

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However, increased deforestation there must be considered in conservation planning. This is because if the buffer area forests are gone, local people may enter the protected area to extract resources. This would endanger biodiversity and the critical ecological services they provide to local people.

What needs to happen next

Madagascar has a national reforestation programme. The country should also restore the forest in the buffer zone areas so that local communities’ needs for forest products can still be met.

We recommend that sustainable management of buffer zone forests include:

• reforestation
• planning where and when specific activities like wood extraction and farming can be done
• sustainable agricultural practices and regenerative agriculture
• promotion of alternative livelihoods
• developing and enforcing environmental sustainability regulations for hotels and restaurants.

Strategies to protect buffer zone forests must include local communities in the designing, planning, setting up and monitoring stages. The aim should be to make sure that the plans are suitable for the local area, that they empower local people and that they’ll be sustainable for the future.

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Tourism entrance fees should continue to be shared between protected areas. This will support the operating costs of protected areas with few tourists.

If Madagascar wants to keep the forests in its protected areas, it must sustainably manage forests in buffer areas to provide for local communities’ needs.

Camille DeSisto has received funding from Duke University, Rice University, Phipps Conservatory, Explorers Club, Primate Conservation Inc., P.E.O. Foundation, and Garden Club of America.

Tristan Frappier-Brinton has received funding from Duke University, Re:wild, Primate Conservation Inc, and the National Science Foundation.

Ranaivo Rasolofoson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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