In Madagascar community-based natural resource management pre-dates the colonial episode. The colonial approach to resource management was repressive and exclusive and, as such, it came to an end when Law 96-025 was passed, granting local communities the legal right to manage natural resources. Thus, at least in terms of resource management, there is continuity between the days preceding colonization and what followed the 1995 international workshop held in Antsirabe. What binds these two periods together is a shared reference to Malagasy customary values which are compatible with decentralized resource management. Among other things these fundamental values restore legitimacy to the transfer of rights and responsibilities inherent in resource management. The 96-025 law results from social pressures on the part of communities whose representatives were given the opportunity to voice their demands in the 1995 Antsirabe workshop. Given that those who drafted this particular law knew that local management capacities existed throughout the territory, the legal text was designed as a legal framework for the management of renewable natural resources, including forests and marine resources, for the entire country. It informed a national policy of decentralization to be carried out over a period of several decades. Since this policy’s implementation, a number of conservation NGOs determined to limit resource access in this biodiversity hotspot have tried to block the process. Despite deliberate attempts to delay and even derail it, the process has, however, been unstoppable. Protected areas have not guaranteed biodiversity conservation. This is evident where and when political crises have turned attention away from rural areas. Nor have conservation-oriented management contracts stopped illegal logging. The same is true of conservationpayments. These payments' sustainability remains questionable and each lapse in funding has been met with voluntary acts of aggression against biodiversity Following the 2003 Durban declaration calling or the expansion of the protected area network, the question of local communities’ role in resource management must, once again, be raised. Such an initiative jeopardizes the chance of successfully reconciling the multiple goals of decentralized resource management, sustainable resource management, fighting poverty and conserving biodiversity. It is imperative that Madagascar choose between nature preservation and participatory sustainable management and between naturepreservation and sustainable local development. Too large a share of its population lives in extreme poverty and depends on natural resources for survival. The longer decision makers delay the choice, the greater the chance of witnessing irreversible environmental damage in a place where biological wealth is inestimable.