Howard E. Woodin ES Colloquium Series

“Mind the Gap Link: Integrating urban migrants and their hometown ties into conservation policy in Madagascar” by Laura M. Tilghman, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Plymouth State University.

Madagascar’s high rates of species endemism and biodiversity loss have made it a global conservation priority. Interventions in this country to save natural resources are most often directed at rural people, who are seen to make up a bulk of the population and to pose the greatest direct threat to endangered species. Rising urbanization rates and widespread prevalence of rural-urban linkages point to the shortcomings of such narrowly focused efforts, since a greater number of Malagasy are beginning to live at least part of their lives in cities and rural peoples are rarely as insular and isolated as imagined by policy makers. This presentation details how city and village, migrant and non-migrant, are inextricably linked in northeastern Madagascar. It also explores how conservation policies directed at villages may have (unintended) impact on cities, and vice versa.