This paper focuses on the interplay between environmental narratives, identity politics and the management of forest resources in Madagascar. While efforts to conserve the island's biological diversity have centred primarily on the designation of protected areas, policies have increasingly focused on local communities. The experiences of the last 20 years have shown that community-based approaches to conservation offer considerable challenges due to the complex politics of natural resource use, which involve multiple and diverse stakeholders, often with very different and sometimes conflicting values. In this paper, I focus on the environmental perceptions and values of two groups in the Central Menabe region of western Madagascar – conservation organisations and rural households – revealing a contrasting set of views regarding the region's forest. I show that the conservation discourse has changed over time, increasingly emphasising the biological diversity of the region's tropical dry-deciduous forest and prioritising non-consumptive uses of natural resources. Although policy has changed in response to changing values, I show that it has been underpinned by the notion that hatsake (‘slash-and-burn’ agriculture) is an irrational practice driven by necessity rather than choice. Policy has thus sought to provide livelihood alternatives, firstly through forestry, then through changes in cultivation and increasingly through tourism. This misunderstands the local view of the forest, which sees hatsake as a way to make the land productive, as long as it is carried out responsibly according to local fady (taboos). As well as facing problems of translating conservation goals into local values and misunderstanding the motives for forest clearance, policy has been based on a narrative that attaches particular land use practices to ethnic identities. I argue that this ignores the history and fluid reality of both identity and land use.

中文翻译：

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迷失在翻译中：马达加斯加西部对森林砍伐、土地​​利用和身份认同的矛盾观点

本文侧重于环境叙事、身份政治和马达加斯加森林资源管理之间的相互作用。虽然保护岛上生物多样性的努力主要集中在指定保护区上，但政策越来越侧重于当地社区。过去 20 年的经验表明，由于自然资源使用的复杂政治，以社区为基础的保护方法面临着相当大的挑战，其中涉及多个不同的利益相关者，通常具有非常不同且有时相互冲突的价值观。在本文中，我重点关注马达加斯加西部中部梅纳贝地区两个群体的环境认知和价值观——保护组织和农村家庭——揭示了对该地区的一组截然不同的观点。s 森林。我表明保护话语随着时间的推移发生了变化，越来越强调该地区热带干燥落叶林的生物多样性，并优先考虑自然资源的非消耗性用途。尽管政策随着价值观的变化而变化，但我表明它得到了这样一种观念的支持：hatsake（“刀耕火种”农业）是一种由必要性而非选择驱动的非理性做法。因此，政策寻求提供生计替代方案，首先是通过林业，然后是种植业的变化，并越来越多地通过旅游业。这误解了当地对森林的看法，他们认为帽子是使土地多产的一种方式，只要按照当地风俗（禁忌）负责任地进行。除了面临将保护目标转化为当地价值观和误解森林砍伐动机的问题外，政策还基于将特定土地使用实践与种族身份联系在一起的叙述。我认为这忽略了身份和土地使用的历史和流动现实。