Trapping Farmer Communities Within Global Environmental Regimes: The Case of the GELOSE Legislation in Madagascar

摘要

In 1996, the Malagasy Government issued the GELOSE law to provide a legal framework for the transfer of natural resources management rights to local communities. Eight years later, management transfers have been implemented in 451 sites, but a controversy exists about whether they genuinely favor community-based management. This article examines the GELOSE legislation in the light of a series of short case studies in order to identify its potential pitfalls. The conclusion is that the approach, by creating new institutions instead of strengthening existing ones, favors resource capture by local elites and is utilized for the enforcement of a non-negotiable, global environmental agenda. We propose, in order to favor a genuine devolution of natural resources management rights, to adopt more flexible approaches that can be appropriated by existing institutions and to compensate local communities for the restrictions of access to their resources.