ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the experiences of three ecoregional initiatives, showing how conservation practitioners are using adaptive collaborative management as an integrating tool for the full suite of conservation strategies employed across an ecoregion. The Madagascar Spiny Forest Ecoregion is a mosaic of spiny forests, riparian and gallery forests, freshwater ecosystems, and coastal mangroves. The social and economic dynamics of the ecoregion are characterized by, on the one hand, a rural agropastoral population that is heavily dependent on forest resources, and, on the other hand, a fast-growing urban population in the cities of Tulear, Ampanihy, Ambovombe, and Betioky. The ecoregional process acts as a catalyst and facilitator for conservation by providing critical supporting activities, such as research on ecological processes and socioeconomic drivers of resource use decisions in local areas and across the landscape. The Spiny Forest Ecoregion program is working with local communities around the forests of Ankodida to help them obtain such a management transfer.
