Closing staffing gaps in Madagascar's protected areas to achieve the 30 by 30 conservation target

Protected areas (PAs) guard critical biodiversity and provide ecosystem services, serving as a pillar of the Kunming‐Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework that aims to protect 30% of the planet by 2030. But most PAs are understaffed. This study documents external workforce contributions to PA staffing in Madagascar, a biodiversity‐rich country that tripled its PA network in 2015. Taking a novel multi‐level approach, we use online surveys of 44 PAs and 13 institutions (managing 81% of PA surface area in Madagascar). Results reveal severe understaffing, reaching only a third of the global recommendation at just one staff member per 37.3 km2. Longer‐established PAs enjoy higher staffing ratios. Local community members comprise 94% of the PA external workforce, contributing up to 52% of labor in category V and VI PAs. Evolving human resource policies to deliberately better engage local communities will build PA resilience, addressing staffing gaps in a cost‐effective and sustainable manner to achieve the 30 by 30 target.


| INTRODUCTION 1.| Protected areas are clearly understaffed
More than 260,000 protected areas (PAs) around the globe today protect flora and fauna and maintain ecosystem services that provide myriad benefits for human well-being (UNEP-WCMC et al., 2021).The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) aims to expand the protected and conserved areas network to encompass 30% of land and sea by 2030, commonly termed the "30 by 30" target (CBD, 2022).This expansion will require mobilization of additional resources for effective PA management.
Studies have revealed staffing and budget inadequacies across marine and terrestrial PAs (Coad et al., 2019;Geldmann et al., 2015;Gill et al., 2017;Leverington et al., 2010;Pomeroy et al., 2005), yet human resource capacity gaps in the PA sector remain poorly documented.Until recently, the only quantitative assessment of PA staff adequacy, globally, was a study of 78 countries documenting an average of 27 staff per 1000 km 2 (James et al., 1999).In 2022, an expanded study of 176 countries and territories retrieved strikingly similar results in terrestrial PAs, documenting one PA staff member per 37 km 2 , equivalent to 27 staff per 1000 km 2 (Appleton et al., 2022).Appleton and colleagues suggest that effective PA management would require increasing the number of staff to achieve a ratio of one staff member per 13 km 2 , concluding that PAs are indeed critically understaffed, particularly in field operations.Several studies have demonstrated that staff adequacy is a definitive predictor of positive conservation outcomes (Geldmann et al., 2015;Gill et al., 2017;WWF International, 2004).

| PA staffing takes many forms
Quantifying PA staffing is complex, and includes human resources that can be paid or unpaid, permanent or occasional, on-site or off-site, sometimes in different roles (Dovers et al., 2015;Londono et al., 2015).Engaging an external workforce outside the formally paid PA organizational structure can address skills gaps for particular tasks, potentially reducing the wage burden.For example, student interns often contribute to wildlife management, unpaid or for a nominal wage, providing a full-time position in exchange for a degree or professional experience (Fournier & Bond, 2015).Volunteers provide in-service hours, sometimes exceeding those of paid staff (Armsworth et al., 2013;VIPP, 2021).Citizen contributions to biodiversity monitoring (Bonnet et al., 2020), and university research projects fill key PA knowledge gaps (Taff et al., 2015).Other entities like technical partners may also provide service hours for staff/consultants not paid directly through the PA budget.
Importantly, PAs regularly collaborate with local communities on many key functions, including patrolling, monitoring biodiversity, and conducting ecological restoration activities (Andrianandrasana et al., 2005;Lotter & Clark, 2014;Reyes-García et al., 2019;Singh et al., 2021).During Covid-19 travel disruptions, local communities assumed significant roles in PA management and conservation (Eklund et al., 2022;Razanatsoa et al., 2021).However, accounting for local contributions from a human resource perspective involves monetization of service hours, development of accurate workload measures, and integration of external workforce experiences into an organization's learning system.Such considerations have yet to be robustly developed, hampering valuation of community contributions in achieving PA goals.This is particularly true for PAs in management categories V and VI (Dudley, 2008) where unpaid local community members may find themselves in charge of management.
Here we delve into PA staffing at a national level in one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, Madagascar.In so doing, we provide a nuanced approach to estimations of PA staffing, seeking to quantify staffing shortages and document the proportion of external workforce contributions (time/capacities not provided by formal employees) to PA management activities.This research contributes to a deeper understanding of human resource systems in Madagascar's PA management, stimulating more inclusive workforce development strategies in the context of the 30 by 30 target.

| PA staffing in Madagascar
Madagascar offers an interesting case study for exploring sustainable PA staffing, having recently undergone an expansion of PAs and a diversification of management strategies.In an initiative called the Durban Vision, significant efforts were made to expand Madagascar's PA network (Madagascar Protected Area System, or SAPM), increasing of the original 43 PAs to 123 legally constituted PAs, covering about 11% of the nation's land in 2015 (Gardner et al., 2018).The national parastatal association (Madagascar National Parks, or MNP), created in 1991, retained management of original 43 PAs.In contrast, the 80 newer PAs are not directly managed by the government, and are instead managed by communitybased, non-governmental, or private organizations, most obtaining official status in 2015.More than a third of Madagascar's new protected areas (NPAs) are designated in IUCN management category V, with socio-economic objectives and models of sustainable use of natural resources by and for local communities included alongside conservation objectives.Compared with pre-Durban Vision, participation by local communities in decision making mechanisms and PA activities has greatly advanced, although there remains room for improvement (Virah-Sawmy et al., 2014).Collaboration with locally based community groups has expanded, termed CLP (local park committee) for MNP-managed PAs, or VOIs (Vondron'Olona Ifotony) for PAs managed by other organizations.
Unfortunately, the expansion of the SAPM was not accompanied by growth in human resources budgets for organizations overseeing PAs (Gardner et al., 2018).Understanding specific capacity shortfalls in Madagascar's expansive network of PAs is hampered by a lack of research, although recent work indicates that the SAPM remains fragile in terms of human resource availability and sustainability (Eklund et al., 2019).Given the 30 by 30 goal, it is reasonable to question whether existing PAs will be sufficiently resilient, and whether the next cohort of NPAs goal will have adequate management capacities.That question is all the more relevant for PAs in developing countries as the 30 by 30 target places critical importance upon respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.However, this target does not address how countries will fund the management and staffing requirements of newly created PAs.Here, we propose an approach to efficiently address these new requirements.

| METHODS
Our research methods seek to provide a holistic view of PA understaffing in Madagascar at both the national level as well as within individual protected areas, as staffing shortages may be experienced differently by onsite staff than by those in central offices that oversee multiple sites.We therefore used two online surveys, one targeting heads of PA managing institutions and one for PA directors, conducted in June and July 2022, respectively.We quantified PA staffing following Hudson and Shen's (2015) suggestion of staffing adequacy as a multidimensional phenomenon.We examined three factors: severity, duration, and expertise of personal resource shortage using a Likert scale in our online survey, targeting heads of PA managing institutions to capture the extent of staffing gaps at the system level.We used a more detailed online survey for PA directors, using quantitative and qualitative questions.We assessed competency gaps using the national competency register for PA management (REPC, 2013) and we determined contributions of the external workforce by requesting information on estimated human-days (the most typical labor unit in Madagascar) to quantify contributions of PA volunteers (Armsworth et al., 2013;VIPP, 2021).We compared variation in labor-day contributions by members of the external workforce across our sample, notably between PAs of MNP (old PAs) and the rest (new PAs); as well as between management category (as V and VI are intended for management as cultural landscapes with involvement from local communities).Additionally, we collected data on internal and external workforce gender for different roles to enhance understanding of HR arrangements or barriers.Participation in the study was voluntary and no compensation was offered in exchange for participation.
To put our results in perspective, we converted site managers' estimates of external workforce labor into an economic value by utilizing the official minimum monthly wage in Madagascar, 58.50 USD per month in 2022 (Decree 2022-626).We calculated staff ratio per km 2 and correlations with local population density, income, and PA surface area to seek relationships with external variables.However, as James et al. (1999) examined global staffing levels using national variables, we delved into patterns at the district level incorporating population density (Instat, 2021) and contextualized our measures by human development index (HDI) rather than by per capita income (MEP, 2018).Indeed, HDI is a more comprehensive measure than per capita income as it includes socioeconomic context such as economic strength and education access.
We received responses from 13 heads of PA managing institutions, representing 68% (n = 84) of PAs by number and 81% (6,178,534.15ha) of PA total surface area for Madagascar (some institutions manage multiple sites).We also received responses from 42 heads of PAs, accounting for a total of 44 sites (two manage two sites each), and 3,049,871.11ha (40%) of Madagascar's total PA surface, representing 43% of PAs that have active management units.These 44 PAs are diverse in size, management category, type of managing institution, and habitat characteristics (Table 1) (Figure 1).2).Three outliers with the highest staff ratios are very small PAs (0.97, 1.79, 12.14 km 2 ).Interestingly, our survey of heads of PA managing institutions reveals a different pattern, only just over half (54%) reporting severe or frequent staffing gaps, a contrast with responses from the field.PA managing institutions view severity and frequency of shortages in staff number slightly more concerning than shortages in staff competencies.
Off-site staff, defined in the survey questionnaire as "paid employees with a contract but not site-based" are reported for 64% of PAs in our sample.Some respondents considered staff based at the institution's headquarters in the capital city, Antananarivo, as off-site staff.Off-site staff numbers could substantially influence staffing ratio, although such support would need to be carefully calculated and recorded over time, as a single person in the PA headquarters may in fact be supporting multiple sites with duties that vary from day to day, seasonally, and annually.Nonetheless, quantifying off-site contributions to each PA site can help to inform how sites receive support from central offices or other non-local sources.Interestingly, surveys also revealed that off-site staff were more gender-balanced (48% female; as opposed to 12% females among onsite staff).

| External workforce contribution to PA management activities
Survey data documented that a total of 33 PA heads, representing 35 sites, rely on an external workforce to meet PA staffing needs.Only seven PAs (three have a surface less than 20 km 2 ) did not report relying on an external workforce, although two PA heads left that question blank.Thirty one sites (27,673.33 km 2 ) reported a total of 101,049 person-days provided by external workforce labor in 2021.These person-days represent, at minimum, an equivalent value of 272,480.89USD (current minimum wage in Madagascar = 58.5 USD/month; 1USD = 4270 Ariary as of February 2023).Of these external workforce inputs, 94% are provided by local communities through organizations like CLP or VOIs.Of the remaining 6%, public agents contribute 4%, students/interns supply 1%, and external experts account for 1% of total labor (in person-day units).We found a significant correlation between population density and contributions of local communities.No significant correlation was found between PA size and regional HDI on external workforce contributions.

| Complementarity of workforce
In 2021, local communities contributed 39% of total labor days for all PAs.This percentage increases to 49% for NPAs established after 2015.Comparisons between national parks (Category II) and PAs with sustainable livelihood objectives (Category V and VI) show even higher community contributions in person-days, with the latter accounting for up to 52% of the total PA labor in 2021 (Figure 2).
Local community members engage as rangers to mitigate a broad range of PA staffing insufficiencies.PA leadership has identified a number of competency gaps, essentially work areas with inadequate or insufficient staff to perform all tasks, that are complemented by the external workforce.These gaps primarily impact operational functions, in areas including law enforcement, support for local communities, education and communication, research and species monitoring, and site maintenance.On the other hand, off-site staff are engaged to support competencies relating to technology, administration, and project management.Such complementarity demonstrates a pattern of competency distribution among on-site and off-site staff, documenting that external workforce members convey both technical expertise and day-to-day field-based competencies (Figure 3).

| DISCUSSION
Although understaffing is commonly lamented among PA practitioners, precise gaps in PA staffing remain less well understood.Given the global emphasis on increasing the number of PAs and improving management effectiveness, greater attention is needed to quantify gaps in staffing capacity.This study is the first to document PA staffing in the context of governance systems, managing institutions, and external workforce contributions in Madagascar, a biodiversity-rich nation that has tripled its PA network since 2015.Our study surveys were conducted post-Covid, at a time that many PAs were experiencing a lower volume of visitors.Although we were not able to obtain data from PAs that lack active management, locally termed "orphan sites," and community-managed PAs, this study represents a sound starting point for analysis of SAPM resilience in terms of human resources, offering a multilevel approach to bring together online survey data from 44 PAs and 13 institutions managing 81% of the PA surface in Madagascar.
Our study sample revealed a staffing density of one staff per 37.3 km 2 based on PA respondents in Madagascar, a figure that is strikingly congruent with ratios retrieved by previous studies conducted at a global scale (Appleton et al., 2022;James et al., 1999).Appleton et al. ( 2022) retrieved a higher staffing ratio for Madagascar PAs (one staff for 19.2 km 2 ), but that figure reflects only those PAs managed by the central agency MNP.Our study adds more nuance to the global average, implying that management effectiveness must be addressed on a case-by-case basis.It includes PAs managed by MNP and also newer PAs managed by other organizations, revealing a pattern of severe understaffing in Madagascar newer PAs, at only a third of the global recommendation of at least one staff person per 13 km 2 (Appleton et al., 2022).We also document that leaders on-the-ground have a higher sensitivity of staffing inadequacy than do leaders in the headquarters, highlighting the importance of bottom-up HR approaches for more effective management strategy.Indeed, consequences of understaffing generally include delays in how fast an organization can achieve a goal (Hudson & Shen, 2015), lower morale and sustainable participation of existing staff (Cheema & Asrar-ul-Haq, 2017), all felt most in daily operations.In Madagascar's PA sector, a lack of field agents delays reporting of illegal activities and results in lack of enforcement in some areas, increasing threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services (Rakotobe et al., 2023).
Our findings are a call to action for strategic and long-term attention to workforce development.This is urgent in Madagascar, where PAs are home to 97.7% of the country's threatened terrestrial and freshwater vertebrates and 76.9% of threatened plant species (Ralimanana et al., 2022).Faced with staffing shortages, some experts have advocated for a stronger focus on strengthening Madagascar's existing PAs rather than rushing to create new PAs (Ralimanana et al., 2022).We believe that a more integrated workforce development strategy incorporating local and community goals can support SAPM's growth to reach the 30 by 30 target.Similarly, engaging an external workforce in PA management enables countries with insufficient PA staff to develop a successful 30 by 30 strategy.Two crucial points revealed by our Madagascar case study are worth emphasizing: First, maturing PA function is essential.Our study found that longer-established PAs managed by the national agency (MNP) enjoy higher staffing ratios than do newer PAs with management delegated by contracts to civil society organizations.Studies have shown that time-since-establishment affects PA management effectiveness due to a longer period of protection over which to establish better staffing effectiveness (Bobiles & Nakamura, 2019;Claudet et al., 2008).Additionally, longer-established PAs attract more volunteers as people become more familiar with a given park's objectives and activities (Armsworth et al., 2013).This is potentially true for MNP as its PAs are better known by the public, and therefore they are on the radar of university students and early career conservation practitioners looking for internships or jobs.It is also possible that time and funding availability have allowed MNP to retain and increase staffing across the PAs that it manages.Reaching recommended staffing ratios to meet the 30 by 30 target will require a nearly 8-fold increase in staffing, or an additional 13,806 people working in PAs over the next 7 years.To reach that objective, the PA sector must be sufficiently attractive to retain its existing workforce and recruit significant additional staffing support, whether as internal employees or through the external workforce.Importantly, building institutional and individual capacities will take time.
Second, building a more inclusive HR policy can start now.Despite having fewer staff, NPAs engage a greater proportion of female workers and a higher contribution from the external workforce.Our results demonstrate that local community members comprise 94% of the PA external workforce in the study sample, contributing up to 52% of labor days of NPAs under category V and VI.Similar studies on PA volunteers have confirmed the substantive role of an external workforce in PA staffing (Armsworth et al., 2013;VIPP, 2021).Clearly, local community participants present a significant opportunity for expanding the pool of potential PA workers to meet current and future needs.A significant proportion of the additional 13,806 staff needed could be provided by engaging local communities.However, recruiting and retaining the external workforce offers a rich topic for future exploration as PA managing organizations increasingly recognize the need for complementary skills and labor contributions in their operations.Fair and sustainable payment (or reward) is an imperative aspect of the 30 by 30 target as it aims to recognize and respect the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities.Participation of CLP and VOI members in PA management depends upon place-based engagement, improved relationships with PA staff, and recognition of community contributions as key motivating factors (Rakotobe et al., 2023).
In parallel, our study has illuminated interesting patterns in PA staffing, with field-based positions tending to be dominated by males, and more even numbers of males and females employed off-site or at centralized locations.This may indicate gender-based differences in preferences or access to opportunities, a clear example of the need for more inclusive HR policies in conservation (James et al., 2021;Jones & Solomon, 2019).In the PA sector, in particular, restrictive gender norms and prevalent gender-based violence are frequent obstacles for female rangers (Seager, 2021).
Inclusive and robust management of PA staff is essential for successful global biodiversity conservation.Gender equity, fair and sustainable compensation mechanisms, retention policies, security, capacity building, and professional development among the formal and external workforce are primed to feature in the next generation of HR policies.However, responsibility for developing an adequate PA workforce extends beyond PA managing institutions, importantly residing with national governments to prioritize support of technical and financial partners, and collaboration with training providers.The uniqueness of Madagascar's biodiversity coupled with the alarming rate of its decline requires bold commitments now.As the world has agreed to protect 30% of terrestrial and aquatic habitats by 2030, the call for expanding human resources and engaging local communities to protect and conserve the planet has never been more critical.Expanding local agency and elevating human rights as part of the global conservation effort is essential for shifting the paradigm to a more just and sustainable planet.Unless these aspects are addressed in the race to achieve the 30 by 30 target, there is a risk of simply developing paper parks and perpetuating top-down and neocolonial systems of power in biodiversity conservation.

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
DR conceived the original idea.DR collected data.NS supervised the project.DR and NS wrote the manuscript.

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I G U R E 1 Protected areas surveyed by type of managing institutions.F I G U R E 2 Madagascar's protected areas (PAs) workforce.General profile of the workforce in Madagascar PAs with (a) area covered per regular staff member, (b) area covered by mixed workforce combining regular employees and external workforce, (c) proportion of local communities' contribution under various types of PAs, (d) a comparison of female participation between on-site staff of old PAs and NPAs, and off-site staff, (e) projection of Madagascar's need for PA workforce by 2030.

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Abbreviations: HDI, human development index; PA, protected area.
Protected areas (PAs) surveyed in this study.Data reveal that 83% of PA directors report that their PAs lack sufficient staff to operate effectively.Among the 44 PAs included in this study, the average staff ratio is one staff member per 37.3 km 2 including both administrative and operative personnel.Upon closer inspection, MNP's staff density (one staff per 26.5 km 2 ) is twice as high as that of NPAs (1 staff per 57.4 km 2 ) with T A B L E 1