Ambohimanga - Conservation and Management

Conservation and Management

A popular tourist destination, Ambohimanga received just under 97,847 visitors in 2011. Visitors to the World Heritage Site are charged a fee of 7,000 ariary, which is largely used to pay for the preservation of the site. The commune of Ambohimanga Rova is a small but thriving rural village that lives on agriculture and services provided to tourists and pilgrims who visit the royal city. Multilingual tour guides can be hired at the site to provide detailed descriptions of its features and history. Photographs are permitted outdoors but prohibited inside the historic buildings. Tourism has been negatively affected at the site as a consequence of the 2009 Malagasy political crisis. Management of the site has also been negatively affected by political instability and reduced revenues since 2009.

The extent of the area currently classified a World Heritage Site was under restricted access and protection during the imperial era and has been under some form of legal recognition and protection since French colonization, having been incorporated into the Colony Domains Service in 1897 and the National Inventory in 1939. It has since benefited from legal municipal protection and two national laws (passed in 1982 and 1983) protecting sites of historical and national interest. The Office of the Cultural Site of Ambohimanga (OSCAR), created by the Ministry of Culture, has managed the site and its entrance fees and state subventions since 2006, when a five-year management plan was developed for implementation by the group's 30 employees. These management and conservation activities are conducted in cooperation with the local population within the Rural Commune of Ambohimanga Rova. The Village Committee, comprising representatives of all the adjacent quarters and the local community, (tradi-practitioners) are also involved in the protection of the site. Conservation of Ambohimanga is further supported by a private association, Mamelomaso, which has also been active in campaigning for awareness and protection of cultural heritage and has contributed to the preservation of numerous other sites of cultural and historic significance in the highlands. In addition to helping replant the Ambohimanga woodlands, Mamelomaso has contributed to the restoration of the stones around the source of the spring, and has paved a number of footpaths within the site.

Despite these measures, the conservation of Ambohimanga is challenged by human and natural factors. The rapidly growing but relatively impoverished population around Ambohimanga occasionally engages in illegal harvesting of plants and trees from the surrounding forests, threatening the integrity of the natural environment. The forests and wooden structures on the site are also susceptible to fire. Following the 1995 destruction of Ambohimanga's sister rova at Antananarivo, widely believed to have been a politically motivated arson, rumors have circulated that Ambohimanga could suffer a similar fate. Cyclone Giovanna, which passed over Madagascar in February 2012, caused considerable damage at the site. The wooden shingles of Andrianampoinimerina's house were torn off by the wind, exposing the historic objects inside to damage from the elements. The wooden fence surrounding the Mahandrihono compound was also badly damaged. Worst affected are the plants and trees at the site. Large swaths of endemic medicinal plants and trees in the forest were destroyed. Many of the sacred trees shading the royal city were uprooted, including sacred fig trees around the Fidasiana courtyard and inside the zebu pen. Two of the uprooted trees were of particular symbolic significance, having served as physical anchors for certain royal rituals since the 17th century. Shortly after the storm, OSCAR unveiled plans to plant a substitute fig for the uprooted one that had shaded the sacred stone in the Fidasiana courtyard. Most of the historic jacarandas planted over a century ago under French colonial rule were also destroyed. The extent of damage to the site has prompted traditionalists to demand renewed respect for the sanctity of the site by requesting adherence to traditional taboos put in place by Merina monarchs. These include banning pigs at the site, as well as the consumption of pork, tobacco, alcohol and cannabis on the grounds of the royal city.