Case Number: 375
Case Mnemonic: MADAGAS
Case Name: Deforestation in Madagascar
A. IDENTIFICATION
1. The Issue
The main historical problem with international trade has been the
correlated destruction of the environment. This is especially true
when it comes to the issue of deforestation. In Madagascar, people
have been cutting down the forests for decades. Throughout the
past century, much of the rainforests of Madagascar have
disappeared. People have begun moving out of the cities,
industries have started to expand, and the use of land for farming
(particularly coffee) has dramatically increased. All of these
phenomenon have led to the destruction of the forest of Madagascar.
This has become a major issue, not only because of the value that
the forest have on the living environment on earth, but also
because of Madagascar's unusual and rare species. Biologically,
Madagascar is one of the richest areas on earth. Approximately
five percent of the world's species reside in Madagascar, and the
island has 8,0000 endemic species of flowering plants alone (New
Scientist, 1990). However, this rare jewel of earth is in grave
danger. Rapid deforestation, caused predominantly by the large
population boom of the developing country, economic downturn, and
mass migration to cities, is destroying much of the natural habitat
of Madagascar.
2. Description
Since 1896 when Madagascar gain became a French colony, the
Malagasy forests have been rapidly depleting. Logging has occurred
for shifting cultivation, grazing, fuel wood gathering, logging,
economic development, cattle ranching, and mining (Economic
Geography, 1993). Prior to 1950 most deforestation that occurred
was done by farmers on a very small scale, however, deforestation
since 1950 has increased tremendously.
From 1950 to 1985, one half of Madagascar's forests disappeared.
In 1985 only 34% of the original forests existing in Madagascar
remained. Much of this destruction is for economic reasons; values
which many westerners cannot agree. With a per capita national
product in 1994 equal to $740.00 and population rate of 3%, the
island nation is left as one of the poorest nations in the
world.
Unfortunately, due to the hardship in Madagascar, citizens often
resort to exploitation of their natural resources to find income.
The people of Madagascar are attempting to survive and conservation
of biological diversity is not a priority. In addition,
corporations have significant influence in dealing with the problem
of deforestation because the government of Madagascar wants their
investment. Due to the extreme debt incurred by the Malagasy
government, the country is exploiting its wood resources to pay off
money owed to northern countries.
Traditionally, countries of the global south have lived
harmoniously with their environment, exploiting their resources,
specifically their forests, only on a small sustainable scale.
However, due to extreme debt and the influence of western
businesses in Madagascar, some of the world's most valuable and yet
unknown resources are endangered.
In order to understand the complex nature of the problem in
Madagascar one must look to the development of this deforestation
beginning in 1896. After France annexes Madagascar as a colony,
many people fled to the forests and survived for years as shifting
cultivators. Irrigated, marsh, and rainfed rice fields were
devastated and abandoned. From the beginning of colonial rule, the
people of Madagascar faced severe shortages of rice. Meanwhile,
the state was eager to increase revenues and export to France and
elsewhere in Europe and Africa.
From the outset, the colony's agricultural production was geared
primarily for export. Coffee, rice and beef were of particular
importance. The Central Highlands became the primary irrigated
rice growing region for both subsistence and export. Ylang Ylang
flowers, cloves, vanilla, and sugar cane were cultivated in the
north; cattle, rice, and maize were major crops in the west.
Coffee, which remains the island's major export crop, was planted
on the east coast, the island region with the largest remaining
forest cover (Economic Geography, 1993). According to Temple, the
soil erosion rates on coffee plots are nearly double those of
subsistence plots, because broad expanses of bare soil under the
coffee bushes are particularly vulnerable to violent storms during
the rainy season. In additions, Madagascar's emphasis on export
production led to a pattern of uneven economic development and
regional fragmentation which created increasing production
pressures and demands upon environmental resources. Due to its
labor demands and attractive producer prices, coffee cultivation
increased in popularity among European settlers and Malagasy
farmers.
Deforestation in Madagascar is directly related to the introduction
of coffee cash cropping. As the most fertile areas were devoted to
export crop production, cultivators cleared forested slopes for
subsistence.
Coffee production is not the only human activity responsible for
the deforestation. Burning, grazing, fuel wood gathering, logging,
and economic development projects, cattle ranching, and mining are
also responsible. The creation of forest concessions and
destructive logging practices substantially contributed to
deforestation in Madagascar during the 1920's (Economic Geography,
1993).
In 1921, the colonial state opened the island's forest to
concessionary claims for exploitation. In its 1922 annual report,
the colonial Forest Service objected to the state's action,
claiming that owners of the concessions "mined" forest resources
for short term gain. This had meant the pillage and destruction of
some of the most beautiful and most accessible forests on the
island as the search precious woods such as ebony and rosewood
intensified. Other forest products such as raffia, beeswax, honey,
lichens, and camphor were gathered for export (Economic Geography,
1993).
The Forest Service was unable to regulate resource extraction due
to shortages in staff and capital, as well as lack of political
will. Infractions such as clearcuts and the burning of forests
were often overlooked by forestry personnel, because of favors they
received form the concession owners while they were touring the
districts. According to Hornac, roughly 70 percent of the primary
forest was destroyed in the 30 years between 1895 and 1925.
(Hornac, 1943).
Gathering forest products, logging, burning, grazing, shifting
cultivation, and export crop production all contributed to
deforestation. These activities existed before the colonial period
but expanded after 1896 due to increasing external and internal
demands for forest products, rice, beef, and expanding coffee
cultivation (Economic Geography, 1993) Coffee still remains a
major revenue source for the state. In the 1980's for example,
coffee comprised 24% of the country's total export earnings
(Chapman, 1992).
In addition to crops, the construction of railroads and their
operation relied heavily on timber, intensifying the demand for
wood. The Forest Service in Madagascar was established to ensure
a stable and sufficient supply of wood for railroad operation. The
creation of natural reserves was legislated in 1927, and forest
reserves were created by law in the early 1930's , but these
tangible responses to calls for forest conservation and
preservation came too late to preserve more than pieces of the
forest ecosystem (Economic Geography, 1993).
In a recent study by Glan Green and Robert Sussman, the two men
studied aerial photography and satellite imagery in order to
measure the deforestation of the island of Madagascar. The study
used aerial photography from 1950 together with the satellite image
data from 1972 to 1973 and 1984 to 1985 in order to estimate the
area of eastern rain forests of Madagascar and the rate of
deforestation over this 35 year period.
The original extent of the eastern rain forests at colonization was
11.2 ha of which 7.6 million ha remained in 1950. By 1985 the
eastern rainforests of Madagascar, as determined from Landsat
images covered only 3.8 million ha. Thus, in 1985, only 505 of the
rainforests that existed in 1950 still remained, 34% of that which
originally existed. This yields an average rate of clearance of
111,000 ha (1.5%) per year between 1950 and 1985 (Science, 1990).
This study provided an example of how remote sensing data can be
used to map and monitor deforestation. Landsat images are already
available for most of Earth's tropical forests. Many of the images
are nearly two decades old and represent a remarkable but
essentially unused database. (Science, 1990).
3. Related Cases
Keyword Cluster
4. Draft Author: Kevin L. Hagan, December, 1996
B. LEGAL CLUSTERS
5. Discourse and Status: DISagree and INPROGress
The nature of deforestation in Madagascar has long been a question
of survival. Due to the fact that survival in a basic human
instinct, it is hard for the people of the Madagascar or the
government of Madagascar to fully appreciate and understand the
value of their natural resources. On numerous occasions to speak
with someone at the Malagasy Embassy in Washington, the Embassy
official stated that the problem was a very complicated one and
that it would be difficult to discuss.
However, there has been some movement in the past as well as
currently that indicates that the Malagasy government understands
the basic value of their forest. The government has established
reserves as well as passed legislation stating that organic items
can not be removed from Madagascar without permission. In
addition, the government has allowed organizations such as the WWF
to set up educational and research sites to study the deforestation
in Madagascar.
WWF's education activities in Madagascar stretch from a child's
first day in school to the training of post graduate researchers.
In addition, WWF operated two environmental education centers in
Antananarivo and Fianarantsoa. According to Nat Quansah, WWF's
Plants officer in Madagascar, "There is an urgent need to study and
conserve the island's natural environments, but for that, there
needs to be an even larger pool of skilled nationals who understand
and care about this unique place." In order to build such a pool,
WWF runs a program to train students and researchers, linked to the
island's universities and research institutes but supplemented with
highly specialized scientist form outside. One subject being
studied is the indigenous use of medicinal plants. "There is a
wealth of knowledge among local people, " explains Quansah, "but
little has been documented, and few plants studied scientifically.
This project is providing valuable information, but it also helps
train local scientists, and demonstrates to the Malagasy that their
environment is well worth saving." (The World Wide Fund For Nature,
1996).
6. Forum and Scope: MADAGASCAR and UNILATeral
7. Decision Breadth: 1 (MADAGASCAR)
8. Legal Standing: LAW and NGO
C. GEOGRAPHIC Clusters
9. Geographic Locations
10. Sub-National Factors: NO
11. Type of Habitat: TROPICAL RAINY FOREST [TROP]
D. TRADE Filters
12. Type of Measure: Regulatory Standard [REGSTD]
By creating laws to protect form deforestation and the
implementation of reserves, the Malagasy government has created a
standard by which deforestation cannot occur in specific areas.
13. Direct vs. Indirect Impacts: INDirect
14. Relation of Measure to Environmental Impact
15. Trade Product Identification: COFFEE
16. Economic Data
Madagascar has a per capita income of approximately
approximately $230 a year and coffee accounts for approximately 24%
of Madagascar's total export earnings.
17. Impact of Measure on Trade Competitiveness: MEDIUM
18. Industry Sector: FOOD [FOOD]
19.
19. Exporter and Importer: MADAGASCAR AND FRANCE/USA
E. Environment Clusters
20. Environ Problem Type: Deforestation [DEFOR] and Bio-diversity
Loss [BIODIV]
21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species
Name: Plant and Animal Species
Type: Many
Diversity: YES
Five percent of the world's species live in Madagascar. In
addition, eighty percent of Madagascar's 10,000 plant species are
found nowhere else in the world , and Madagascar has five times as
many tree species as the whole of North America.
22. Impact and Effect: HIGH and PRODuct
23. Urgency and Lifetime: HIGH and approximately 40 years
According to The World Wide Fund for Nature, at Madagascar's
current annual deforestation rate, forests will be depleted in
approximately 40 years.
24. Substitutes: CONSERVATION [CONSV]
Rather than deforesting the land to deplete non-renewable
resources, groups such as WWF and Conservation International are
attempting to educate the Malagasy people about soil erosion
prevention, rainforest conservation ,and new farming techniques in
order to eliminate the need for continued deforestation.
F. Other Factors
25. Culture: YES
Culture is definitely an issue in deforestation in Madagascar
because the Malagasy people have long used the land of the
rainforest for subsistence farming, in addition to the recent usage
of the land for coffee production. In order to effectively slow
deforestation, an effort would need to be made to convince the
Malagasy people of better uses of land and more productive farming
techniques.
26. Trans-Border: NO
Due to the fact that Madagascar is an island, there are no
transnational issues that directly affect this case study on
deforestation.
27: Rights: NO
28. Relevant Literature
Chapman, M. "In Africa South of the Sahara." Economy. 1993.
p.500-504.
Chown, Marcus. "Satellite Monitors Madagascar's Shrinking
Rainforest." New Scientist. 19 May 1990. v126n1717. p.32.
"Deforestation Case Study: Madagascar".
http://www.sprl.umich.edu/GCL/forestlab.html
Green and Sussman. "Deforestation History of the Eastern Rain
Forests of Madagascar from Satellite Images." Science. v248 n4952.
13 April 1990. p.212-215.
Hornac, J. Le déboisement et la politique forestiére à
Madagascar." Mémoire de Stage. Mémoires de l'Ecole Coloniale
ENFOM. Archives D'Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence. Archives Nationales
de France.
"Introducing Environmental Awareness in Madagascar." The World Wide
Fund for Nature. 1996. http://www.panda.org
Jarosz, Lucy. "Defining and Explaining Tropical Deforestation:
Shifting Cultivation and Population Growth In Colonial Madagascar."
Economic Geography. October 1993. v69n4. p. 366-379.
"Madagascar: General Information." Malagasy Midnight Press. 12 June
1996. http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/tnc/
Back to AFRICA Cases
Go to SUPER Page
December 19, 1996