Madagascar

Located off the east coast of Africa in the Southwest Indian Ocean, Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island; at 146 million acres, it’s almost the size of Texas. Madagascar’s climate is tropical along the coast, temperate inland, and arid in the south. The island harbors lush rain forests, tropical dry forests, plateaus, and deserts. Its more than 3,000 miles of coastline and over 250 islands are home to some of the world’s largest coral reef systems, tidal marshes, seagrass beds, and most extensive mangrove areas in the Western Indian Ocean.

Sustaining livelihoods of coastal communities

Since 2019, WWF has supported the establishment of 19 fishing cooperatives and helps both to train and enhance members' technical and management skills through peer learning and to access new markets. Well managed fishing co-ops reduce loss of fisheries product, thereby reducing strain on marine ecosystems.

WWF has also helped to develop ventures that offer alternative incomes and protect fishers from the threats of increased cyclones and other dangers of fishing in the ocean. These ventures include freshwater tilapia fish farming and the creation of a cooperative, primarily made up of women, to commercialize raffia, a palm plant, sold nationally and internationally as fiber or hand-woven baskets.

Sustainable blue finance

WWF partners with governments, private industries, communities and other non-governmental organizations to provide long-term, sustainable financing for conservation. At a community level, WWF works with Village Savings and Loan Associations to help communities better manage finances and build savings that can be used to provide financial assistance to members and fund local conservation efforts. At the regional-level, this work includes the Enduring Earth approach and piloting the Marine Biodiversity and Community Resilience Facility, a hybrid finance incubator designed to close the funding gap for community-based marine conservation and sustainable livelihoods. The Fund’s pilot focused on a Community Based Organization that supports progress under Madagascar’s climate smart national mangrove plan.

Marine and coastal protection

WWF works with community-based organizations, fishers, and government authorities to manage marine and coastal resources using science and traditional knowledge. Locally managed marine areas (LMMAs) are the chief form of area-based ocean conservation in Madagascar. Over 280 LMMAs are set up around the country and members participate in community-led conservation management activities through community patrols and data-collection. WWF works with dozens of villages to support the establishment of LMMAs, is currently supporting the legalization of LMMAs as associations at the local authority level, and supports legalizing the right for communities to manage mangrove forests.

Adapting to climate change

WWF works with communities and governments to develop and implement responsive strategies to safeguard coastal areas from the expected impacts of climate change. Along the western coast, WWF works on mangrove forest protection and restoration that provides benefits, like flood protection, to communities and secures hundreds of tons of carbon to mitigate climate impacts. To sustain Madagascar’s remaining mangrove forest, WWF supports national policies that strengthen management and integrates climate-smart restoration. Locally, WWF works to scale-up community-led conservation and management of mangroves by strengthening the capacity of training institutions and facilitating learning exchanges across the country and greater Western Indian Ocean region.

Nature-Based Solutions Origination Platform

The Nature-Based Solutions Origination Platform (NbS-OP) is WWF’s innovative vehicle to deliver nature-based solutions at scale—benefiting people, climate, and nature across some of the world’s most vital forest landscapes, including Madagascar’s Northern Landscape. Agricultural expansion, illegal logging, climate change, illegal fishing, and deforestation currently threaten this critical region, which contains one of the island country’s largest forest blocks. Through the NbS-OP, WWF is focused on an integrated approach to forest protection that combines biodiversity conservation and community development to achieve a sustainable development model in the area.