New Ocean Voices Fellow: Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy

Vatosoa Rakotondrazafy is a passionate advocate and storyteller for small-scale fishers and marine conservation. For 8 years, she led Madagascar's Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMA) movement as MIHARI’s National Coordinator and later as Chair of the network. In 2019, she won the Whitley Award for her work in defending small-scale fishers and promoting community resource management. Named one of Africa’s Top 100 young conservation leaders in 2021, Vatosoa co-founded BEOLOBE, Madagascar’s trust fund for local communities, in 2022. She now manages IUCN’s Blue Planet pillar as their Regional Coastal and Ocean Governance Manager. 

During the fellowship, Vatosoa will have a research focus “Establishing a Pan-African LMMA coalition: Expanding the movement with Lessons from the Pacific”.