A final push to share results

We put a lot of effort into presenting our results from the four years of research we did on the p4ges project to partners in Madagascar. We held an academic conference, a final policy event (attended by two ministers), various visit days at the field sites and many events at the community level to share results (see here, here, here and here). Our PI Julia Jones has even met the president of Madagascar!

However we knew there were stokeholders who weren’t aware of our results so I spent a month visiting offices of relevant organisations in Tana and explaining specifically which of our results are most useful to them, sharing copies of reports and policy briefs and explaining their relevance.

The visit of different institutions would help to share and to discuss directly with practitioners who were very involved in conservation and development project. We targeted around 20 institutions which include Departments at the ministry of environment, society civil and NGOs working in conservation.  Most of those institutions have been working in the country since many years or/and could have a strategic position in decisions making.

From the state, we have visited the Department of Development and Ecology partners (DDPE), the department of protected areas (DSAP) which are at the ministry of Environment Ecology and Forest . The DDPE are in charge of promoting Payment for Ecosystem Services, ecological certifications and the collaboration with private organisations. The results from the project are very useful to develop the strategy about payment for ecosystem services. For them, it is important to know the social cost for conservation and the others benefits from forest ecosystems.

We also shared our results to national Environmental Office (ONE). ONE is a key office for the conservation areas in Madagascar. It is in charge of delivering environmental permits, engaging in Environmental Impact valuation of the activities carried out by societies or organism and disseminating information and knowledge around conservation. For those purposes, P4ges is relevant because it would provide new insights to help ONE for it missions. The restitution was done with some team member of department and communication and was well received.

The Director of this department underlined the need of collaboration between researchers and practitioners. She also brought remarks about the main causes of the forest destructions in Madagascar despite that the extend efforts to conserve since many years now. She also asked about the lack of engagement from local communities. Fortunately, the project has done a lot of investigations according these issues. The institutional and social work packages for example are looking at the complexity of natural resources management, the local cost of the conservation, and some reasons which might cause the lack of motivation from local people. They are agreed about the results and encourage the team to continue to share the results and to support the results of this project highlighting the values of the tree fallows.

The other meetings with GREET, WCS, ALLIANCE VOARY GASY, ONG PARTAGE,TANY MEVA were mainly focused of the current needs of conservation and the relevance of joining research and practices. For example, GRET has worked in the Corridor Fandriana Vohindrozo and has developed the RHYVIERE project which aims to promote the rural electrification. Now, GRET want to extend the same project by including many localities, they are very keen about the local implication and the approaches used from the project and how they can apply them. From Alliance Voary gasy part, the information and results we provided could help them in understanding the different issues on forest ecosystem conservation.

I conclude that it was very valuable to spend time visiting these institutions and doing bespoke, highly targeted restitution of our results for them.

By Rina Mandimbiniaina