Learning Networks

This article was first published as a commentary on Mongabay on April 22nd 2020 Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on vulnerable communities in the Global South go far beyond the looming public health emergency.  The broader economic and environmental ramifications are of profound importance to biodiversity conservation. How the conservation movement responds will determine our relevance ...

After four years championing the rights and needs of Madagascar’s small-scale fishers, Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy has won the prestigious Whitley Award for local conservation leaders in the Global South. Rakotondrazafy received this award on 1 May 2019, in recognition of her work coordinating the MIHARI Network, Madagascar’s network of locally managed marine areas (LMMAs). Coastal communities ...

Njaka and Nantenaina travel to Rwanda to find that they're not alone in seeing the links between family planning and environmental conservation. Read the full post: Family planning: a holistic issue

New research published in the journal Marine Policy demonstrates the promise of smartphones as a useful tool for small-scale fisheries data collection in low-income countries. Describing the results of a project conducted by Blue Ventures between 2013 and 2016 in southwest Madagascar, the study shows the potential for smartphones and the Open Data Kit (ODK) ...

In an interview with the MacArthur Foundation, the National Coordinator of the MIHARI Network, Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy, tells the story of MIHARI's foundation and growth. Founded in 2012, the MIHARI Network represents the voices of Madagascar’s small-scale fishers and promotes the equitable and sustainable management of marine resources through locally managed marine areas, or LMMAs. In 2014, MacArthur ...

The implementation of a reserved fishing zone for Madagascar’s small-scale fishers was the subject of a meeting between the Minister of Fisheries and staff from the MIHARI Network and Blue Ventures. The landmark meeting at the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources in Antananarivo on 19th July 2018 began with a speech from Mr Hermany ...

In 2017, the Knowledge for Health (K4Health) Project, a project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), conducted a three-day storytelling workshop in Madagascar in collaboration with USAID Madagascar and Blue Ventures. This workshop gave members of the Madagascar PHE Network an opportunity to improve their knowledge management and storytelling skills, and to share their stories with ...

Between 2003 and 2016, Madagascar’s protected area coverage quadrupled. Such unprecedented growth brought great hope, some notable successes and a host of new challenges for the island’s conservation community. Co-authored by Charlie Gardner from the University of Kent and other practitioners involved in the evolution of the island’s protected area system, including Blue Ventures’ Executive ...

The National Coordinator of the MIHARI Network, Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy, is a pioneering voice for women’s rights in Madagascar’s male-dominated fisheries sector. Read the full post: A woman in a man's world: how the MIHARI Network coordinator is getting women's voices heard

At an official ceremony in Madagascar’s capital city Antananarivo, Blue Ventures signed MIHARI’s new membership charter, reaffirming our role in supporting the network and the locally managed marine area (LMMA) movement in Madagascar. The charter details the commitments made between all organisations supporting the MIHARI Network, with the common purpose of developing and promoting LMMAs ...