Community Development

The success of a good CBC project rests on a number of factors. Perhaps the most important of these is that locals participate and have a role in decision making. This gives people in the area a stake in the outcome of the project. At meetings held in 2004, the residents of Mahabo made it clear that their most pressing agricultural need is the rehabilitation of an irrigation system that had fallen into disrepair, specifically the dam that guarantees the water supply used to irrigate the people’s rice fields around Mahabo village. The WLBC is not providing funds for the dam’s repair. Rather, we helped the local residents to apply for financial aid so that they know how to go after available money in the future. When the funds come through, WLBC will help assure that the dam is properly repaired. Once this is done, many families will be able to produce two rice crops per year instead of one, which, it is hoped, will alleviate the pressure people feel to (over)exploit the forest to sustain themselves.

The traditional Malagasy diet consists primarily of rice, cassava, and fish and is not very nutritious. An effort has been made to expand the scope of the local diet through the establishment of community gardens. These are situated in a place with an adequate water supply chosen by the community. Seeds are planted in raised beds, and compost is used as fertilizer. Among the plants that have been introduced are tomato, cabbage, carrots, vanilla, peppers, cloves and oranges. Not only do these vegetables offer a supply of vitamins not traditionally available, but surplus can be sold at the regional market, thus generating additional income for local people. The success of this program is reflected in the recent appearance of additional gardens in peoples’ back yards.

Another pressing concern for the people of Mahabo is health care. The people of Mahabo Commune are among the poorest in Madagascar¾itself one of the poorest countries in the world. Currently, Mahabo Commune is an unhealthy community: child mortality (from diarrhea, malaria, poor nutrition) is high, malaria endemic, respiratory ailments and syphilis frequent, and there are periodic outbreaks of cholera. A health center was built in 1992-93 but the facilities are inadequate. There is no meeting room (meetings and counseling are done on the steps of the clinic or in the sick room when there are no patients), no waiting room (patients wait outside where there is no shelter or privacy), no sanitation, no source of water, and no house for the nurse (consequently, there is no nurse), and the physician’s house, damaged by a cyclone, is in a state of disrepair. In order to help improve the quality of medical care in the commune, an application for a foundation grant was written for the people of Mahabo. Money for the construction of an entirely new building was awarded in early 2005, and work should begin early in 2006.

The people living in and around the forest are also being encouraged in the classroom to do what they can to improve their circumstances. The two foci of the educational program are health maintenance and environmental education. One of the problems encountered in the villages around Mahabo forest is that each family has a large number of children. As a result, these families remain mired in poverty, with too little to eat and a high rate of infant malnutrition. To combat this situation, the WLBC has teamed up with the Peace Corps representatives of which have been devoting a great deal of time teaching village women about family planning and birth control. In 2005, basic health and nutritional training for selected villagers was added to the curriculum; two persons from each village were selected to receive the training, with the understanding that they would pass the information along to their neighbors. It is too early to assess the results of this effort.

In the area of environmental education, there are strong indications that the campaign to promote the benefits of conservatiuon is succeeding. A two-week workshop to inform and train local teachers and parents was given in 2003. The objective was to encourage teachers to incorporate in the school program an environmental class that will allow them to teach their students about the environment and the benefits of conservation. Also, a team composed of MBG and Forestry Department staff regularly visited the eight villages around the forest sites to inform villagers about the different advantages of having a forest and the need to conserve it. When, in 2005, it was learned that some illegal cutting of timber had occurred, Mahabo residents were outspoken in their opposition.

Throughout the world the conservation of common lands has always proved problematic; resources belonging to everyone are often viewed as belonging to no one and thus are exposed to abusive exploitation. Moreover, once such exploitation begins, fatalism and the resulting grab-it-while-you-can mentality often set in, excellerating the process. In order to strengthen the community’s sense that they have a stake in the health of the forest, WLBC representatives, in conjunction with the local community, drafted a dina, or set of community rules to regulate the use of shared resources, to control the overextraction of forest products (particularly timber). The dina does not forbid local people to harvest timber for house construction; such a rule would be unfair as well as impossible to enforce because, until the community plantations have matured, local residents have no other means of obtaining shelter. However, exploitation for local use can be done only with the agreement of the mayor, and timber cannot be removed for sale to people from outside the community—a practice that currently represents the greatest threat to the forest. The dina and the agreement between MBG and the community to work together in this conservation project were formalized during a ceremonty that brought the people of Mahabo, the mayor, the king and representatives of the WLBC together to declare their common goals.