Search

In Burkina Faso, the "forêts classées " are protected areas that since their classification in the 1930s by the colonial empire have had several functions. While the scientific literature has regularly addressed these spaces on the basis of official texts and geopolitical contexts, studies that relate the local history of these places seem more rare and scattered. Past and contemporary dynamics in these protected areas are sometimes difficult to apprehend because of their conflicting dimension. We propose here to describe the trajectory of the environments and the vegetation of these protected areas from two work relating social chronicles of this region. How are bush and forests perceived and described in these different sources? The analysis of the representations in the works makes it possible to propose an analysis of the environmental history of these landscapes in connection with local contexts. Indeed, if the vegetal landscapes can give the impression of a protection "under bell" at first, it is possible to observe that the practices of pastures and hunting now become new modalities of local appropriation of the space. These uses are based on ancient social organizations and reveal that these perimeters inherited from the colonial era continue to be the focus of attention in these landscapes of western Burkina Faso. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]