Marine spatial planning (MSP) – a public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic, and social objectives (Ehler & Douvere 2010) – is increasingly considered an operational approach to help make marine and coastal ecosystem-based management a reality. Tools and technical approaches, including “Systematic Conservation Planning” (Ardron, J.A., Possingham, H.P., and Klein, C.J. (eds) 2008) using different softwares (MARXAN, ZONATION, C-Map ...) are available for data processing and analysis for the MSP.

The Madagascar government has committed to a vision to establish a system of management and conservation areas covering 10% of Madagascar’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) by 2015. Since 2005, Madagascar has been among the first of Indian Ocean Countries to embrace MSP as an approach to meet this target, under the direction of the Environment-Fisheries Commission (CEP), the RAMP-COI project (Marine Protected Areas Network of the Indian Ocean Commission and other related initiatives. Between 2005-2007, the CEP identified 29 coastal and marine priority sites for conservation. From 2008-2009, the Madagascar Protected Areas Commission (SAPM) used the “systematic conservation planning" approach to identify new terrestrial protected areas. RAMP-COI employed similar methods to map marine conservation priority areas in the western Indian Ocean in 2008-2009. A 2009 marine conservation workshop formally adopted these methods as the decision support framework for Madagascar marine conservation planning. In 2010, the Climate change adaptation for marine conservation program in Madagascar (CI, 2010) produced maps of marine priority areas that incorporated biological values and climate change considerations. However, the socio-economic parameters necessary to optimize the effectiveness of management and conservation of marine resources have not yet been fully taken into account. Rapport Atelier MARXAN Marine (29/11/2011-08/12/2011) (1.13 MB 2012-03-20 03:37:50)