In Madagascar, the tension between conserving nature and supporting people’s livelihoods is both urgent and deeply complex. The island is a global biodiversity hotspot, home to countless species found nowhere else, yet it is also among the world’s poorest countries. Nearly 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and many depend directly on land and natural resources to survive. 

“Because many people depend directly on land and natural resources for their livelihoods, the creation of protected areas for forest conservation can have serious impacts on local communities,” explains Clara Diebold, PhD candidate at the Wyss Academy for Nature. “From a sustainability perspective, the key challenge is therefore how to protect forests in a way that is both effective and just.” 

For Clara, this question lies at the heart of her research. She explores what she calls sustainability pathways—“the dynamic trajectories or strategies that allow us to achieve this goal.” These pathways, she adds, “are not linear or fixed, but rather involve multiple and potentially overlapping actions and decisions, as well as adaptations along the way.” 

Clara’s PhD focuses on the district of Maroantsetra in northeastern Madagascar, where the Wyss Academy’s Solutionscape is located. Using a case study approach, she examines several conservation and development initiatives to understand what helps—or hinders—their ability to achieve both social and ecological goals.  

“My goal is to identify what supports or limits their ability to achieve both social and ecological goals, and what lessons can be drawn for similar efforts elsewhere,” she says. 

One of her first studies looked at participation and knowledge inclusion. “We found that while all studied cases were initiated externally, local participation and knowledge inclusion tended to increase over time,” Clara explains. “However, participation often remained consultative, meaning that people were asked to share their knowledge and opinions but could not directly influence decision-making. This brings the risk that external actors impose their priorities and override local perspectives.” 

Her analysis also explored how different types of knowledge—systems, target, and transformation knowledge—are integrated into projects. “We found that conservation and development initiatives often experienced failures and necessitated redesign if they neglected one or more knowledge types in their design and implementation,” she says. 

One case shows how design choices matter. Residents proposed a vegetable garden through a community process. The site’s flood exposure was not fully assessed by the team, and a subsequent cyclone destroyed the garden. The effort had to be discontinued. The takeaway is to embed climate-risk assessment and adaptive design in community-led projects from the outset. 

For Clara, this example highlights a key lesson: “Even when local actors are empowered to make decisions, projects can fail if important types of knowledge are overlooked. We therefore argue that explicitly addressing all three knowledge types from the outset–understanding how things work, defining shared goals, and finding strategies to achieve these goals–can strengthen both the fairness and effectiveness of conservation and development initiatives.” 

Her work also focuses on how to co-create transformation knowledge—insights on how to move from understanding problems to achieving solutions. “In sustainability science we often distinguish between three types of knowledge: systems, target, and transformation knowledge,” Clara explains. “Science is traditionally very strong at producing systems knowledge. However, there is often a lack of knowledge about how to address these challenges effectively. This is where my research contributes: understanding which strategies can help to move from challenges to solutions.” 

Clara’s approach emphasizes collaboration. “There is broad agreement that target and transformation knowledge cannot be produced by researchers alone but must be co-created with the people directly affected,” she says. To do this, she conducted interviews with actors at different levels of conservation and development initiatives, followed by workshops to validate and deepen the findings. “Based on an initial analysis of these interviews, we then organized workshops with the involved organizations to validate the findings and deepen the knowledge, allowing participants to reflect on and refine the ideas together.” 

One of Clara’s case studies also focuses on the Wyss Academy’s work in Madagascar. “The team generously allowed me to participate in all aspects of their work, which gave me deep insights into how the projects operate,” she says. While her research hasn’t directly changed the Wyss Academy’s activities so far, she believes it has “contributed to discussions, such as around participation in decision-making processes.” 

Her findings confirmed the Academy’s ongoing approach: “The focus on bringing together local, scientific, and practitioner knowledge,” she says, “is a promising way forward.” Looking ahead, she hopes that her next paper — which aims to identify leverage points to increase organizations’ effectiveness — can inform future strategies and inspire partners in Madagascar and beyond. 

Clara’s year living in Maroantsetra left a deep impression. “Sharing everyday life with the local team made me realize how different our realities are—and how demanding their work can be,” she reflects. Local staff often act as a bridge between international project leaders and communities, navigating expectations from both sides and, at times, personal risk. 

From this experience, Clara emphasizes the less visible elements that shape outcomes—communication, trust, and the everyday work of coordination. Moments in the field, she notes, “reveal the everyday challenges of project implementation—issues that often go unnoticed by those who spend little time in the project area.” For her, advancing toward sustainability is not only about what gets done, but how it is carried out, including shared decision-making and attention to context. 

Clara’s research contributes a valuable piece to the larger puzzle of sustainable forest conservation. “While my focus is mainly on the ‘how’ questions–how the way conservation and development initiatives are implemented influences their success–other research addresses the ‘what’ questions, that is, which activities should be undertaken,” she says. “Together with ongoing learnings from practical implementation, I believe these insights can help guide activities not only in Madagascar but also in other Solutionscapes.”