Title: The Environmental Trade-offs of Mining in a Biodiversity Hotspot: Reconciling Mining and Conservation in Madagascar
Author/Institution: Katherine Devenish – PhD Dissertation, Bangor University Publication Year: 2023
Mining, Conservation, and the Ecology of Extraction
Katherine Devenish’s dissertation investigates the complex relationship between mineral extraction and biodiversity conservation in Madagascar—an island globally recognized for its ecological uniqueness and fragility. Her research focuses on how environmental governance frameworks attempt to reconcile economic imperatives with the protection of endemic
ecosystems, using case studies that include mineral-sands developments such as Base Toliara. Devenish argues that mining projects in biodiversity hotspots reveal a profound policy tension between growth and ecological stewardship, often masked by technocratic language of “no-net-loss” or “offsetting” that rarely accounts for local livelihoods or cultural landscapes.
Interdisciplinary Methods and Field-Based Evidence
Employing a mixed-method approach that combines ecological fieldwork, stakeholder interviews, and spatial analysis, Devenish examines how conservation policies are translated—or distorted—on the ground. She finds that corporate biodiversity-offset programs tend to overstate restoration feasibility while underestimating socio-ecological disruption, particularly in arid coastal zones around Toliara. Her data reveal that compensatory conservation sites often fail to replicate lost habitats or community resource functions. The thesis also documents the role of NGOs and state agencies as mediators in these contested landscapes, where scientific uncertainty and governance fragmentation amplify mistrust among affected populations.
Implications for Governance and the Social Licence to Operate
Devenish concludes that reconciling mining with conservation in Madagascar demands a radical rethinking of environmental governance, one that integrates social justice and ecological integrity as interdependent rather than competing goals. She contends that biodiversity-offset schemes and environmental-impact assessments must include community-defined values of nature—not just biological indicators—to gain legitimacy. For policymakers and mining companies alike, the research underscores that achieving a genuine social licence to operate in biodiversity hotspots requires transparent decision-making, equitable benefit-sharing, and long-term ecological accountability. The Madagascar experience, she warns, exemplifies how global sustainability rhetoric can obscure localized patterns of exclusion and environmental loss.