Geophysics elucidate long-term socio-ecological dynamics of foraging, pastoralism, and mixed subsistence strategies on SW Madagascar

Abstract

The environmental impacts of human societies are generally assumed to correlate with factors such as population size, whether they are industrialized, and the intensity of their landscape modifications (e.g., agriculture, urban development). As a result, small-scale communities with subsistence economies are often not the focus of long-term studies of environmental impact. However, comparing human-environment dynamics and their lasting ecological legacies across societies of different scales and forms of organization and production is important for understanding landscape change at regional to global scales. On Madagascar, ecological and cultural diversity, coupled with climatic variability, provide an important case study to examine the role of smaller-scale socioeconomic practices (e.g., fishing, foraging, and herding) on long-term ecological stability. Here, we use multispectral satellite imagery to compare long-term ecological impacts of different human livelihood strategies in SW Madagascar. Our results indicate that the nature of human-environmental dynamics between different socioeconomic communities are similar. Although some activities leave more subtle traces than others, geophysics highlight similar signatures across a landscape inhabited by communities practicing a range of subsistence strategies. Our results further demonstrate how Indigenous land stewardship is integrated into the very fabric of ecological systems in SW Madagascar with implications for conservation and sustainability.