Deforestation in Madagascar: Counter Arguments and Opposing View Points
As the world draws deeper into the 21st century, global environmental issues such as
pollution, overpopulation, resource management and deforestation will continue to draw
worldwide attention as environmentally hot topics through political, social, and economic lenses.
Despite growth in interest, technology and research methods, causes and effects associated with
these global concerns are not fully understood, especially those of deforestation within tropical
regions. Although deforestation is one of the earliest environmental issues recorded and
understood as an ecological threat, scientists and geographers alike have not been fully able to
comprehend the rationale and consequences connected with the issue. However, recent studies
and a better understanding of the driving mechanisms within tropical forests have the potential to
bring further clarity to the issue.
It has been widely known that the island nation of Madagascar has been dealing heavily
with the deforestation of its tropical forests for centuries. The island is a hot spot for this
environmental controversy due to the extraordinary amount of endemic species that reside within
the tropical area and the desire to preserve such a unique piece of the world’s environmental
history. From the moment that deforestation was considered an unsustainable environmental
threat, Madagascar has been singled out as an area being victimized by the threats associated
with the problem due to its apparent obvious loss of forest compared to pre-settlement forest
extent, increase in dry grasslands, and amount of red soil erosion gullies (Kull, 423 and Klien,
191). For decades, civil society, environmentalist groups, international corporations and the
media have assumed that these observations are valid and are continuing to be a major problem
for the island. Blame for the destruction of the unique, fragile, and biologically diverse island of
Madagascar has been placed on anthropogenic causes such as unsustainable use of fire, shifting
cultivation, and logging (Kull). However, there is extreme uncertainty as to the validity of these
arguments and accusations placed on the deforestation issue in Madagascar. Deforestation is
certainly an exceptionally real issue on the island nation, but inaccurate assumptions and over
exaggeration of the magnitude or legitimacy of the issue may have been regrettably accepted
over the years. In this section we will dive deeper into potential counter arguments within the
issue of deforestation on Madagascar and will discover where the potential inaccuracies and over
exaggerations may have been established.
The vast majority of environmental problems that occur in developing countries are not
directly observed or detected by the average person. Typically, the issue is portrayed and
reported through a secondary source and is then passed to the media who displays the
information to the world through various means such as television, newspapers, internet and
journal articles. Recently, with the rise of globalization, knowledge about environmental issues
can become global almost instantaneously. The rapid, global movement of ideas has become
increasingly quick and unchallenged allowing for a weak or non-existent checks and balance
system to establish itself. The media has taken advantage of this freely flowing system by
producing compelling and often inadequate storylines about environmental issues that grab
public and governmental support (Kull, 424). In turn, the development of narratives, discourses,
and myths ensue and become institutionalized as facts and ultimately assemble an improper view
of reality (Klien, 191). The new institutionalized truths, which are often created through biased
observers looking to achieve a specific agenda, become widely accepted and often block one’s
ability to think in other ways (Klien, 191). In the case of deforestation on the island of
Madagascar, this unmerited movement of knowledge, enhanced by methods of globalization, has
potentially shaped great misunderstanding of the situation.
In the early 1900s, French naturalists Henri Humbert and Henri Perrier de le Bathie
developed a narrative and hypothesis concerning the deforestation trend in Madagascar (Kull,
426 and Klien 193). During the height of the French colonial rule, the French naturalists were
thought to be superior in knowledge and understanding of the environment and placed blame on
the indigenous Malagasy and the poverty stricken, ignorant famers for the destruction of forests.
Humbert and de le Bathie claimed that the introduction of shifting cultivation, improper and
overuse of fire, logging and excessive agriculture destroyed the once heavily forested island. The
French naturalists assumed the island was, at one point, wholly consumed in thick, lush tropical
forest that had recently been destroyed. Through basic observations, the narrative claimed that, at
the time of the field work, the island was only 10% forested and therefore had been 90%
deforested (Kull, 432). Despite seemingly outrageous accusations and statistics, de la Bathe and
Humbert became regarded as the most respected on the subject and were often cited for their
work (Klien, 193). To better understand Madagascar’s current situation it is essential to
understand that much of the original narrative was developed from a Western bias towards more
permanent agriculture. Foreign expertise, as seen through the French Naturalists, was valued
over local experience (Kull, 440).
To formulate a complete understanding of the deforestation on Madagascar, it is essential
to dive deeper into the geological and climatic history of the island and discover potential root
causes to the issue. Avoiding simple surface level thinking, basic observations, and outdated
narratives will aid in the process. Authors, John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto, claim, in their
work Breakfast of Biodiversity, the importance of understanding the root causes and complexity
of the web that creates the deforestation problem instead of simply placing blame on others and
becoming complacent with previous thought.
The topography and climate on Madagascar varies greatly despite the island’s relatively
minute land area. The region is characterized by rolling hills, large plains, volcanic cones, and
narrow valleys, all of which are associated with different biomes and vegetation types including
tropical forest, savanna, dry grasslands, woody shrubs, heath and riparian forest (Klien, 191 and
Kull, 431). The island’s climate is modified by both altitude and its proximity to the ocean
waters. Extremely distinct seasonal rainfall occurs on the island during hot and humid summers
followed by cool, dry winters. Much of the area can effortlessly be perceived as deforested due
to large quantities of grasses and little other vegetation. Erosion is often severe due to a large
number of gullies, labeled lavaka, which have unusually high erosion rates (Klien 191).
Arguably, the current grasslands that inhabit the island are more heavily influenced by
climatic changes rather than anthropogenic deforestation patterns. In the early 1980s, a team of
researchers, led by a scientist labeled Burney, attempted to discover whether current grasslands
in the Madagascar region reflected climate change patterns, and also sought to determine the
historical role of fire on the island. Through methods such as radio carbon dating and pollen
stratigraphy, Burney’s findings represented mixed vegetation prior to human intervention (Klien,
193). In addition, Burney investigated charcoal sedimentation from sediment cores and
discovered concentrations of charcoal greater in late Holocene and Pleistocene samples than in
more modern periods indicating the natural role of fire prior to human existence on the island
(Klien, 193). The role of fire is often misunderstood, within the ecosystems of Madagascar, as
destructive to the land rather than a vital, sustaining piece of the area’s ecology. Clearly, the
research and evidence portrayed the island as a natural and consistently changing ecosystem.
This more modern and accurate thought was not taken into account during initial creation of the
hypothesis and proves the potential for over exaggeration and inaccuracies.
Additionally, other areas of uncertainties, regarding the effects on the Madagascar
tropical forests, have become better understood including roles of poverty, population densities,
logging and fire. Poverty and rural peasantry are difficult to blame for deforestation because it is
the unjust world system that forces them into their position (Vandermeer and Perfecto, 131). The
local populations on Madagascar are strained by population growth and poverty leaving them no
choice but to make short term resource use decisions and ignore long term sustainable practices
in order to better survive (Kull, 428) From a local perspective, the indigenous populations are
transforming the land to survive because that is all that they have been provided with (Kull, 432).
Deforestation is often attributed to the cutting of forests for fuel wood and construction.
However, recent studies have shown that this remains true only within areas of high population
density and Madagascar’s population density has been extremely low until recently in its history
(Klien, 195). The basic concept of Malthusian thought is not applicable to the Madagascar
scenario because population is simply a small piece of the problem and is not the driving force to
the issue. Commercial logging is also not seen as a major issue because of the rapid forest
recovery rate. Instead, more focus needs to be placed on allowing the land to recover and
avoiding land uses that will inhibit its recovery process (Vandermeer and Perfecto, 91).
The purpose of this section is to offer opposing viewpoints to a situation that can become
effortlessly misinterpreted and inaccurate, in the hopes of increasing awareness and developing a
better understanding of the critical deforestation issue. If the issue of deforestation on the island
nation of Madagascar is to be solved, competing viewpoints, root causes, and the complex web
of global environmental problems on both spatial and temporal scales must be better understood.