Land Competition and Human-Environment Relations in Madagascar

Abstract

This chapter discusses mining investments and land titling for local Malagasy, which have been at the core of land issue debates and policies in Madagascar. However, many Malagasy depend on forest products like wood and food items, pitching them against these NGOs and foreign mining companies interested in exploiting the subsoil minerals of forestland. The chapter also re-examines whether and to what extent human-environment interactions have impacted on Malagasy ontology. Swyngedouw and Whatmore observe that human relations are embedded in the environment or landscape, where land underlies and conditions the entire belief system. World Bank policies, foreign investments and conservation projects have wrought major changes in Malagasy relations to their land and social and natural environment. Conventional dichotomies pitting 'local' against 'foreign', or 'traditional' versus 'modern' mores have proved insufficient as tools to analyse how the Malagasy position themselves when competing for land. Keywords: foreign mining companies; human-environment interactions; Madagascar; NGOs; Swyngedouw; Whatmore; World Bank policies