Ecotourism in Madagascar - Responsible Tourism: Critical Issues for Conservation and Development - page 39

5 To speak and lobby about its ongoing development and efforts to the world;

especially to investors known for their responsible ecotourism activities
thereby attracting them to come to Madagascar as well as the well known
international organizations for ecotourism.

It is obvious that today, Madagascar stands at a cross-roads between:

• Unstrategic tourism development for a few with exploitation of natural

resources and pursuing non-sustainable and rapid results to boost the
country's development.

Or

• A harmonized mix of different types of tourism (of which ecotourism is an

important one) to develop the economy of the country by integrating the local
population and improving their living standards, targeting a responsible and
long-term vision in which nature resources will be exploited in a sustainable
way.

Malagasy tourism development seems to be heading in the second direction and
the ongoing activities of the current government are supported by their first
positive results. If the country continues like this and develops ecotourism as a
means to boost the Malagasy economy and to increase the living standards of the
local population, it will hopefully help to improve the country's development.
Although donors' help is still needed to provide financial as well as technical assis-
tance for the topics discussed above, it seems that Madagascar has finally started
to address the MAP and its vision.
We wish Madagascar, the Sleeping Beauty in the Indian Ocean, recently
kissed awake, success in becoming the leading ecotourism destination in the
Indian Ocean and for the President's slogan to become true and respected world-
wide:

Madagascar - Naturellement !

Notes

1 The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) defines ecotourism as 'responsible

travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of
local people.'

2 The Malagasy President has emphasized his willingness to increase protected areas

to 6,000,000ha as well as to increase the surface of marine protected areas to 10 per
cent of national territory.

3 According to the Madagascar National Institute of Statistics, 68.7 per cent of the

island's inhabitants live below the poverty threshold (INSTAT, 2005).