The success of the experimental management programme relies on coordinating effective enforcement of regulatory controls with a practical monitoring system that has the necessary scientific rigour to enable the results to be interpreted properly and ensure that they reflect the situation in the field.

Under present legislation, many animal species (including chameleons and day geckoes) are classed as species able to be "hunted" during an annual hunting season, the timing of which is fixed by the legislation. The hunting season currently coincides with the period of the year when adult animals are reproductively active. As a result numerous gravid females are harvested. The sustainability of the harvest would be enhanced considerably by ensuring that the harvest season does not coincide with the breeding season, thereby compromising the recruitment potential of the population by the removal of gravid females.

The policy to reduce the number of operations that will be licensed to export chamaeleons and day geckoes represents a positive move by the Malagasy Government. This decision, if implemented, and accompanied by reduced collection and export quotas, should contribute positively to enhancing the overall sustainability of the programme. However, there is little doubt that the Management Authority will be required to deal with a number of requests from individuals wishing to renew licences and participants in the experimental programme. It is very important, in order to preserve the integrity of the programme, that the Management Authority does not issue additional licenses or increase the capture quota for each species, without an adequate scientific basis, simply to cater for economic considerations of involving additional operators.

Some exporters are requesting approval to establish captive-breeding operations that would operate in parallel with the experimental management programme. The technology required to successfully ranch or breed most species of chameleons and day geckoes in captivity has yet to be developed. Furthermore, the majority of officers of the Management Authority do not presently possess the technical skills necessary to audit operations and verify captive-breeding activities. Under the circumstances, a real risk exists that captive-breeding operations will simply serve as mechanisms to disguise wild-caught lizards as captive-bred progeny and export these specimens outside the established quotas. From a regulatory standpoint, it is less problematic if all captive stock is derived from a single source (i.e. wild populations) according to annual quotas, which are apportioned among the licensed exporters. Inspections are made much easier by only having to ensure that the inventory of livestock correlates to the numbers of specimens of each species without having to differentiate stock from two separate sources. Furthermore, unless subject to strict regulation, the development of captive breeding operations has the potential to seriously disrupt population monitoring activities and impair the overall integrity of the experimental management system by providing an avenue by which annual export quotas can be exceeded.