GoKawiilAndo Rabearisoa worked with local fishers to establish locally managed marine conservation areas that protect fisheries and local incomes in Madagascar. Credit: Johnson Rakotoniaina
Three years into an ecological economics PhD in France, Ando Rabearisoa made a decision that would change both her life and Madagascar’s coastal ecosystems. In 2009, she abandoned her PhD studies to move back to her home nation of Madagascar. There, inspired by some of her early research on community-based management of natural resources, she worked with fishing communities to create locally managed marine areas (LMMAs), a type of coastal conservation zone that is overseen by the communities that rely on the area’s natural resources. LMMAs offer an alternative to conventional, government-managed marine protected areas, the implementation of which, in low-income countries, can lead to friction with anglers and lack proper enforcement.
From 2009 to 2019, Rabearisoa led the Madagascar marine programme at Conservation International, a non-profit organization headquartered in Crystal City, Virginia, focused on environmental protection. During that time, the number of LMMAs in Madagascar swelled from 33 to 177. Now, scientists are studying how these conservation areas affect people and nature. For example, in Madagascar’s first LMMA, researchers observed a 189% increase in fish biomass over a six-year period1.
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After more than a decade away from doctoral studies, Rabearisoa started a new PhD, this time researching marine conservation at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She investigated how the web of LMMAs that she helped to create is affecting fish populations and fisher incomes. Her latest study, published in 2025, surveyed communities in northeastern Madagascar and found that 95% of respondents preferred LMMAs to conventional marine conservation zones because they give local people better control of fishing rules and restrictions2.
Madagascar has emerged as a regional model for LMMAs, in part owing to Rabearisoa’s work. In 2024, the nation hosted East Africa’s first-ever LMMA conference for anglers, conservationists and other stakeholders from countries such as Kenya and Mozambique. Now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, Rabearisoa spoke to Nature about community-based conservation, her decision to resume her PhD studies and the challenges that female scientists face in Madagascar.
When did you first become interested in the environment?
Beginning when I was ten years old, my family and I would go camping in the rainforests of Madagascar. The government had created a series of national parks and my father insisted on taking the family to these brand new reserves. I distinctly remember seeing lemurs, and that made me fall in love with nature.
Why did you leave academia, and why did you return?
I did my master’s degree in ecological economics at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar. I wanted to understand not just ecology, but also how to attribute value to the benefits that nature provides.
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