Ecosystem management in Madagascar during global change

Abstract

AbstractA long‐held assumption about Madagascar is that all its open vegetation and forest fragments represent anthropogenically degraded landscapes. Further, its forests are believed to lack regenerative capacity following extirpation. This article presents a different ecological framework for southeast Madagascar, a region with diverse forest habitats (humid, littoral, and transitional forests) and exceptional biodiversity. Recently published reconstructions of vegetation change at millennial scales indicate that the mosaic vegetation in southeastern Madagascar represents a natural distribution, with littoral forest spatially constrained by soil moisture, rather than principally fragmented by human activity. There is also evidence that the littoral forest is resilient to climatic change and has acted as refuges and centers of diversification for millennia. By contrast, Uapaca woodlands, which connected the littoral forest fragments, switched to a stable fire‐maintained Ericoid grassland in response to climatic changes. Evidence also suggests that local communities managed forest resources sustainably in the past, but human migration, insecure land tenure, and road expansion may have accelerated forest loss over the last decades. This novel perspective demonstrates the integrated nature of ecological, geomorphological, climatical, and social systems. Finally, combining long‐term with contemporary perspectives, some strategies for maintaining biodiversity under global change, including anthropogenic climate change and mining pressures (and associated biodiversity offset projects) are suggested.