Popular Music as a Communication Tool in Community Based Conservation

In the remote community of Ambalabe, in rural Madagascar, food insecurity, deforestation, and illiteracy are the results of an increasingly poor population living on degraded land without access to agricultural markets or educational opportunities. Since 2005, Ambalabe community members have been collaborating with botanists, ethnobotanists and agricultural technicians from the William L. Brown Center (Missouri Botanical Garden) to develop a sustainable conservation plan for Vohibe Forest, the 3,000 ha evergreen forest they utilize as a source of food, medicine and building materials, and to create new economic and educational opportunities. However, due to the high rate of illiteracy the message of the conservation program was not reaching all members of the community or the larger regional audience. To solve this problem, we employed the use of popular music by creating a song and accompanying music video to summarize the conservation activities and promote the program’s success.