Des territoires et des contrats au service de l’environnement. Le Lalangina, sur le versant ouest du COFAV (corridor forestier Ambositra Vondrozo) à Madagascar

This article investigates the challenges linked to the notion of environmental services as manifest in rural public policies in Madagascar’s forested zones. It analyses how the concept renews certain environmental politics, how it is put into practice, and how it is appropriated by the farmers. In other words, it asks what is meant by “buying and selling environmental maintenance”, what are the mechanisms for this, and what are the results in terms of the dual objectives of biodiversity conservation and poverty reduction.This study of Payments for environmental services (PES) took place in Lalangina Region, in Betsileo country on the western slope of the Ambositra-Vondrozo forest corridor (Cofav). The novelty of the PES is that it would involve payments for the forest’s natural processes through a privatization of a public good, the environment. There are a number of systems that put buyers and sellers of PES in contact. In this case, the payees are local communities. They are paid by the Small grant program of the global environmental facility (GES/SGP/UNDP) to reduce their uses of nature and to contribute in this way to environmental protection. This provision seeks to change attitudes through new income generating activities outside the forest that utilize positive practices for both environmental services and agricultural or artisanal production