Translation & transformation

Abstract

Finishing my PhD field research in 1971, the environmental challenges facing Madagascar were already clear and I decided to try to help.  At the time, I viewed this as a separate track in my life that had little or nothing to do with my academic career as a biological anthropologist. This was to change over the ensuing decades.  At the outset, the then President of the School of Agronomy at the University of Madagascar, the late Gilbert Ravelojaona, encouraged a small group of us from ESSA, Yale, and Washington University, to establish a partnership with a rural community.  There would be three goals: conserve the surrounding forests and wildlife, improve community members’ livelihoods, and provide a site for training and research.  Ravelojaona was ahead of his time: only in the 1980s did community-based conservation approaches gain wide attention.  His vision took us eventually to Bezà Mahafaly, where the partnership continues and has expanded to encompass neighboring communes.