Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy

Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy is a passionate advocate for small-scale fishers. She served as the National Coordinator of MIHARI - Madagascar’s Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMA) Network for 6 years and she was elected President of the board of the Network in November 2020. She won the Whitley Award in 2019 for her success in defending the rights of Madagascar’s small-scale fishers and to enable those communities to exchange experiences and strengthen their capacity to manage their resources. In 2021, Vatosoa was named in Top 100 young African Conservation Leaders. After successfully bringing stakeholders together to ensure the sustainable management of Madagascar's marine resources, Vatosoa put her coordination skills at the service of the Malagasy think-tank INDRI with the task of building on existing conservation knowledge to safeguard Madagascar's unique marine and terrestrial biodiversity. She led Alamino, which is a national movement to generate collective action and brain power to re-green Madagascar. In 2022, she founded BEOLOBE, Madagascar’s first platform that brings together the island’s community-led conservation initiatives: marine and terrestrial and aims to mobilize investments and resources to prioritize Indigenous and local communities’ well-being and their guardianship of natural resources. She is currently IUCN’s Regional coastal and ocean governance Manager.