How to Foster Organisational Capacity for Integrated Biosphere Reserve Management: The Biosphere Reserve Mananara-Nord, Madagascar

Biosphere reserves often lack organisational capacities. As one of the world's poorest countries, bestowed with a rich bio diversity, Madagascar is particularly faced with this challenge. In a qualitative social research approach, we identified success and failure factors of Malagasy biosphere reserves and brought them into conjunction with the organisational capacities at hand. With regard to integrated management, interviewees emphasised the need to enhance collaboration with external experts in the areas of conservation and development, and to promote involvement of local communities in management tasks. The Biosphere Reserve Mananara-Nord in Northeastern Madagascar, which is the focus of this article, responded to this claim by decentralising the management. This requires efficient organisation and information exchange. Therefore, we propose to establish a "learning work environment" to facilitate knowledge exchange, improve coordination, and foster employee's motivation and capacity building. Efficient use of organisational capacities allows for effective integrated management backed with external expertise and local knowledge. This also needs to be achieved at other biosphere reserves.