Madagascar’s Protected Area Network has been established to protect the island’s unique and threatened habitats, biodiversity, and ecosystems, including globally important forests. The landscapes within and around this network are also home to thousands of rural, largely nature-dependent communities that rely on these protected areas to provide essential benefits that underpin their wellbeing. Successful management of Madagascar’s protected areas is therefore inextricably linked to and contingent on delivering sustainable and equitable development for people in the surrounding landscape. While Madagascar’s biodiversity enriches the lives of all humanity, rural Malagasy must not be disadvantaged by its conservation.

Royal Botanic Gardens Kew is leading a consortium of conservation and development NGOs as part of a major £10m investment in Madagascar, through the Defra Biodiverse Landscapes Fund. Building on over 100 years of combined community-based conservation experience in Madagascar, and mobilising a predominately Malagasy team, we seek to deliver a data driven and evidence-based model for the sustainable management of Madagascar’s protected areas, that tackles poverty, biodiversity loss and climate change in unison.