Also cultivators calculate what is economically ben-efi cial. Historically cultivators in this region have come here to look for money (mitady vola). Gen-erally looking for money is a male work, because idea is that male provides material conditions for his wife while wife takes care of household takas
such as carrying water and looking after children.
Of course women also go and look for money, e.g working in other peoples’ fi elds (par jour) or having a friend who gives money or some other materials for sexual relationship. I think ecotourism fi ts into this local way of fi nding money. Finding money means that one is not necessarily thinking of long term working relationship but gaining money for daily living or resolving some problem for what he needs money for, like hospital expenses. For exam-ple, one man approached one day my family’s fa-ther. The man wanted that the father rents his rice fi eld for one season, because he needed money for some unmentioned trouble. One woman explained to me that her main money comes from when she works for other person’s fi eld. I asked how many days about in a month you work on other persons fi eld? She said that it varies, but about 7 meaning that she can earn about 7 euros in a month. Also in 2009 when almost all the villagers participated in illegal loggings in national park. Mainly rosewood was logged and transported to China. Loggings were eventually were halted by national army with co-operation of MNP and some local guides, cooks and porters. What I am referring here that the most of the cultivators’ perspective how to earn money can changes quickly and commitment to national park and ecotourism has not been very strong if some other opportunity appears.
The general attitude is that it is better to cul-tivate the land because if something happens to MNP or MNP fi res them, they always have their land. Some guides calculated that this year (2013), when vanilla prices were higher (14-21000 ariary/
kg/green) it is better to concentrate on vanilla sell-ing than use time for guidsell-ing. This shows that in all societies there is economical rationalization but we have to understand the history and continuity of the society how people rationalize their choices.
Marking their environment is a sign of shifting cultivators’ sovereignty and relations. Successful marking is to make a marriage, build a house, have children and bury their dead. If someone has extra money, he/she usually wants to build a big house as one of the researchers paying salary for his lo-cal assistants told me. Household, usually parent or parents and their children, takes care of the basic needs of the living such as cultivation of their fi elds, taking care of the harvest and consuming it princi-pally, as well as living in the same house.
If someone is known to get a bigger amount of money, he or she is expected to build a house. For example, my assistant built an extra big room for his house with cement fl oor and plank walls. Also one chef was working for 6 month period in the
park for a lemur research projects and with the money he got, he enlarged his house. One man in the village had made his fortune with huge rice fi eld harvests in Andapa: His house was built out of cement and he started to build third fl oor for it while I was staying there. Two or three fl oored ce-ment houses were signs of wealth received from high vanilla price of 2003. According to local mem-ory in 2003 green vanilla was sold 400000ar/kg when in 2012 price 1kg green was 5000ar. It is also a married woman’s interest to have a house in her natal village. For example my research assistant’s wife made continuous claims that he should help her to build a house. The explanation was that it is important to build a house for a wife because if people divorce, there is no need to share couple’s house, if a wife has her own one. One conservation-ist commented: Why do they use their money for houses, it does not help them economically at all?
His vision was that people should invest the salary for example in a pig that can reproduce or they can sell after and get more money. I think he missed the point house in this society can be thought as a sym-bol for life and its quality, peoples’ sovereignty and continuity of the family.
The meaning of land and territory derives from a cumulative history of occupation and use.
By marking the nature, shifting cultivators be-come more and more settled, rooted to use Kel-ler’s (2008) term, in a place. When people move to a new sight they do not loose ties to an old one but the new sight after successful establishment of fi elds, houses and descendants becomes imagina-ble as a branch of the kin group. For example my research assistant’s father is from a village, further west from Marojejy. My assistant told me that he could go there any time and claim his land. At the moment he is happy to stay in where he is, but it is his obligation is to send his dead aunt, from whom he inherited his land in the village he is living now, bones to the village where aunt’s father is from. The village further west is my research assistant’s as well as his aunt’s tanindrazanana. Tanindrazana is the place where one will be buried, usually where one’s father is from and where he has been bur-ied. While doing the interviews, I learnt that some people had established a new tanindrazana in the village they have been living. To be able to do that, they had requested for mijoro, blessing from the ancestors done by the zafi ntany, the original settler of the village. There are special places for making a mijoro. In the villages I visited places were such as a big rock near the river, a big tree nearby the road or a tree in front of the house of the original settlers.
Peoples’ presence and relations that include the
liv-ing and the dead, are inscribed in their landscape.
To maintain relationships to ancestors can seem irrational from economical point of view.
My family’s father had gotten his rice fi elds from his aunt who had passed away already seven years ago. Only promise he had given to his aunt was that he will do exhumation (famadihana), sending her bones where her father is from. Sending bones can be done after 5-7 yrs. This event took place after I had already let but the guide estimated that he esti-mated to spend about 1 100 000 ariary for the feast that is one third what he can earn from ecotourism in a year. In a feast the expenses are for a cow (zebo) that is ritually important in Malagasy society, buy-ing a cement coffi n and 30 daba, about 1 daba is an oil can that can fi t about 10 l oil, of rice for about 500 guests to eat plus smaller expenses such as petrol, oil, tomatoes and so on. He complained to me that this is too expensive feast for him at the moment but if he doesn’t do it, he is afraid that bad luck will come and he doesn’t get what he wants.
CONCLUSION
In this particular case ecotourism is not enough to be benefi cial for all the 52 villages around the park.
I think concept of nature and perception of it are essential to understand different points of views.
In this paper I have showed that ecotourism pro-moters and villagers have different kinds of percep-tions of nature. In ecotourism point of view, nature is a resource that can be used for economic benefi t.
For cultivators, nature can economically benefi cial but it is also a life world, a place where their family is from, where their ancestors come from. I wish to emphasize that when co-operating in ecotourism, key concepts of the society, their cultural categories should be understood, also historically.
Keywords: ecotourism, anthropology, Tsimihety, Marojejy, conservation
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