Sarobidy Rakotonarivo

Research Fellow – ConFooBio

sarobidy.rakotonarivo@stir.ac.uk / @sarobidyrakoto

Autobiography: I am environmental socio-economist with an interdisciplinary background in natural resource management. My PhD thesis at the University of Bangor and Copenhagen examined the true local welfare costs of conservation restrictions in Madagascar using multi-disciplinary methods (non-market valuation and deliberative approaches). Prior to my PhD, I used the lens of political ecology to analyse the institutional arrangements and land-use conflicts within a REDD+ pilot project in Tanzania.

Research interests: One of the most intractable problems hampering progress towards the sustainable use of natural resources is stakeholders’ unwillingness to work towards the same goals; some people are passionate about the need to conserve biodiversity whether for moral or anthropocentric reasons, while others are primarily concerned about competing objectives related to their livelihoods and well-being. My current research in ConFooBio aims to assess these disagreements (also known as “conservation conflicts”) and understand the factors that influence whether or not conflicting stakeholders are willing to cooperate. One of my core interests lies in developing new understanding of stakeholders’ decision-making from behavioural games and deliberative approaches. I am also interested in examining the influence of uncertainties (at various levels of the natural system and decision-making processes) on the development and resolution of these conflicts. My current research builds on my PhD which elicited local people preferences for how natural forestlands should be managed. I experimented with innovative multi-disciplinary methods (stated choice experiments combined with qualitative debriefing approaches) to investigate the trade-offs that poor rural farmers would make between compensation schemes and different forest use scenarios. My PhD has major implications for how global policy may be devised to deliver environmental benefits without jeopardising local livelihoods.

Publications

Rakotonarivo, O.S. Jacobsen, J.B., Larsen, H.O., Jones, J.P.G., Nielsen, M.R., Ramamonjisoa, B.S., Mandimbiniaina, R., Hockley, N.J. Qualitative and quantitative evidence on the true local welfare costs of forest conservation in Madagascar: Are discrete choice experiments a valid ex-ante tool? World Development. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.02.009

Rakotonarivo, O.S. Schaafsma, M. Hockley, N.J. (2016). A systematic review of the reliability and validity of discrete choice experiments in valuing non-market environmental goods. Journal of Environmental Management. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2016.08.032

Scheba, A. and Rakotonarivo, O.S. (2016). Territorialising REDD+: Conflicts over forest conservation in Lindi, Tanzania. Land Use Policy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.06.028

Poudyal, M., Ramamonjisoa, B.S., Hockley, N.J., Rakotonarivo, O.S., Gibbons, J.M., Mandimbiniaina, R., Rasoamanana, A., Jones, J.P.G. (2016) Can REDD+ social safeguards reach the ‘right’ people? Lessons from Madagascar. Global Environmental Change. doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.01.004

Mustalahti, I. Rakotonarivo, O.S. (2014) REDD+ and empowered deliberative democracy: Learning from Tanzania. World Development http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.01.022

Vieilledent, G., R. Vaudry, Andriamanohisoa, S. F. D., Rakotonarivo, O.S., Randrianasolo, Z. H., Razafindrabe, H. N., Rakotoarivony, C. B., Ebeling, J., Rasamoelina, M. (2012). A universal approach to estimate biomass and carbon stock in tropical forests using generic allometric models. Ecological Applications. dx.doi.org/10.1890/11-0039.1

Links sarobidyrakoto (Skype)