Bilan et perspectives d'ajustement pour les politiques de décentralisation de la gestion des forêts sèches à Madagascar et au Niger

In Madagascar, policy changes on deforestation have sometimes produced contra- dictory approaches over time. In the 1990s, reviews of previous approaches brought a switch to decentralised forest management. Fifteen years after the reforms, their effects at the local level were analysed in order to assess the opportunities and constraints that resulted for forest management and rural development. This analysis was compared with a case study in Niger. Our paper provides a brief description of the results. Decentralisation policies are analysed here as a strategy in response to a diagnosis of forest degradation, which may be seen as a diagnosis of vulnerability. The policies were focused on fuelwood, which was seen as the main purpose of forest use. However, the knock-on effects of their implementation at the local level produced changes in other uses of forest ecosystems. This paper discusses possibilities for adjusting decentralised forest management policies in Madagascar and Niger, based on integrating the full range of forest uses when management responsibilities are transferred, and on developing adaptive management systems that stem from interactions between all the players concerned that occur well ahead of the management transfer process.