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The GEREM Program (Management of Rural Areas and the Environment in Madagascar) was conducted between 1996 and 2002 in south-western Madagascar. One result of the partnership between the three sciences was the highlighting of deforestation as a major environmental problem. Scientific findings point to the extent of deforestation, its irreversible character, and the resulting loss of biodiversity. Satellite imagery has provided a useful tool for comparing results. The forest of the Mikea, some 100 kilometres from Tulear, was used as an example because of the extent and speed of biodiversity loss. The extent of deforested areas has quadrupled since the late 1980s. Essentially, the cause of deforestation is the slash-and-burn cultivation of corn (maize), locally known as hatsaky. Due to the dynamic interplay between the types of environments and the changing use of land, addressing environmental issues from the angle of each separate discipline is no longer helpful. This study calls for a multidisciplinary and territorialized approach to environmental problems. The GEREM Program seeks to both understand the emerging environmental problem and identify the research issue. By combining agriculture and the environment with time and space scales, the research team has pooled its scientific investigations and produced findings that can be used by all three sciences.