Welcome to my web site!

I just completed a Phd dissertation in Natural Resources. Here is my abstract:

SLASH-AND-BURN CULTIVATION AND DEFORESTATION IN THE
MALAGASY RAIN FORESTS: REPRESENTATIONS AND REALITIES

Madagascar is a threatened biodiversity hotspot that has attracted the attention
of conservation biologists and donor agencies for over two decades. The remaining
primary forests are being cleared at a fast pace by farmers pushed toward the forest
frontier and practicing slash-and-burn cultivation. A National Environmental Action
Plan, supported by multilateral and bilateral donors, has been in place for 15 years but
failed to decrease the overall deforestation rate. Results in terms of biodiversity
conservation are local and have been achieved at the cost of negative impacts on local
livelihoods. This dissertation analyzes the causes of this failure.

The central hypothesis is that a gap exists between the realities of Malagasy
farmers and the representation of these realities by actors committed to changing them.
To test this hypothesis, I first analyzed the agrarian system of a community of slash-and-
burn farmers and the strategies of projects supporting the development of
alternative land uses. Second, I deconstructed the environmental and development
discourses that sustain conservation and development practices, using a method
inspired from post-modernism and social constructivism. Special attention was paid to
the alternatives to slash-and-burn paradigm, participatory ideology, and the
demonization of fires. Third, I questioned these realities and discourses in the light of
a conceptual framework aimed at avoiding the traps of positivist and relativist
epistemologies.

The conclusion is that the politicization of scientific debates and the hegemony
of technocratic controls led to a wide reality gap that no actor has been able to
surmount. The real interactions between ecosystems and societies, the dynamics of
agricultural intensification and the macroeconomic causes of deforestation are
ignored. As a result, projects and policies target the wrong issues, have impacts
contrary to their objectives and contribute to the marginalization of poor farmers
whose dependence on natural resources persists. Only critical and creative analyses,
inclusive ways to consider challenging representations and pragmatic and flexible
intervention strategies could remedy this situation. I argue that in order to achieve this,
more bridges and synergies must be created between research and decision making.

The dissertation ends with a series of practical recommendations aimed at stopping
deforestation in Madagascar without requiring the poorest farmers to pay the price for
it. Among these propositions, subsidies aimed at compensating the negative impact of
conservation on local livelihoods emerge as an inescapable utopia.

Keywords: Madagascar, Beforona, rain forest, deforestation, land degradation, slash-and-
burn cultivation, agrarian systems, environmental policies, political ecology,
science and technology studies.

You can download this PhD dissertation complete (12 Mb), an excerpt (table of content, summary and conclusion), the abstract and draft versions of my papers, and my my CV.

My electronic address is jp267@cornell.edu.

I hope to get your feedback and to exchange ideas with you.

Thanks for your interest and have a good reading.

Jacques Pollini, Ph. D.
Department of Natural Resources
Cornell University

Last updated: November 30, 2007