Hajaniaina is dedicated to the understanding of marine resource depletion, its resilience mechanism, and its governance system. His involvement in marine conservation started by completing a B.Sc. in MPA management, being a volunteer with Blue Ventures (BV)’s 36th expedition, followed by DEA (Advanced Masters) in applied oceanology, then joining BV again as a Field scientist, and soon later as the Fisheries Monitoring Coordinator.

After 2 years with BV, he left BV to start an M.Sc. in the Science and Management of Marine and Lacustrine system in Belgium. Afterward, he worked on a project that tries to identify potential conservation zones in the Malagasy wetlands. Once the project ended, he worked for a group in the Malagasy/Mauritius textile industry to make them greener and comply with (inter-)national requirements.

Eventually, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) offered him to start a Ph.D in Marine Biology & Governance analysis. This has led him to the world of academia. So, after his Ph.D, he joined the System Ecology and Resources Management lab at the Université Libres de Bruxelles (a member of the IUCN mangrove specialist group) to perform research that was fully focused on the study of mangrove governance and exploitation for local communities (in Malaysia, Singapore, the Andaman, and Sri Lanka).

Parallel to that, he was a co-titular of the Conservation genetics course at the VUB. He was also among the team of specialists that designed the Belgian water strategy (www.waternexusbelgium.org). He could not wait to get the opportunity to use all he got for the local communities in Madagascar again; This is the reason why he is delighted to get back among BV’s team which share his mission in rebuilding marine resources with local communities.