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In the middle of the last century, the emergence of a new risk, the climate risk, was a sudden and largely unexpected phenomenon that has significantly changed our vision of environmental issues. Of course, the link between humans and nature is strong and ancient: a country like France has very few landscapes that have not been shaped by generations of builders, foresters or farmers. But climate change linked to greenhouse gas emissions has brought about a radically new problem, whose novelty results from its very nature. The risk of climate change was revealed by equations or very indirect observations, before it was even really observable. But the speed of its progression, with greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere which have so far never stopped increasing and accelerating their growth, has made a huge difference. Moreover, this evolution has developed in a context where it has been intimately intertwined with other rapidly changing issues: energy, environmental, social, political and demographic. However, despite the variety of warning signals put forward by the scientific community, despite the now widely shared recognition of the existence of strong climate challenges, the dynamics with which these changes have developed, very often remain underestimated and even misunderstood. Climate risk is still very often associated with a certain form of immobility, marked by the repetition of discourse that gives the impression that the stakes have changed little over the last few decades. This incomplete awareness is one of the most important brakes on the development of effective environmental policies, because it erases an essential dimension of current climate issues: we are facing a problem that is very advanced in its development and everything is no longer possible today. The future world will necessarily be marked by the need to arbitrate between partially contradictory issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity offsetting relies on scientific hypotheses that are barely investigated. The aim of this paper is first to explore under what conditions it is possible to envisage biodiversity compensation from the perspectives of ecological science and planning policies. Two fundamental assumptions are scrutinized: the issue of substitution of a given ecological entity and the possibility to choose a given spatial and temporal reference for the dynamics of this entity. While scientific studies conducted on ecological systems have regularly emphasized the historicity of biological dynamics and the irrelevance of referring to a balance of nature, biodiversity offsetting principles rest on those out-dated assumptions. More specifically, the analysis of a practical case reveals that compensation proceeds by replacing the specificities of ecological entities by exogenous spatial and temporal framings. This process suggests that compensation should be viewed as a tool for the technoscientific reconfiguration of ecological problems. The temporal and spatial limits imposed by ecological entities are encapsulated in a political system specifically built to push back the boundaries of economic and urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article deals with the implementation of environmental policies taking as an example the case of the national park of Vanoise. Comparing the case studies of the Maurienne and Tarentaise valley, the paper shows how the users of this protected space, create two contrasted organizational frameworks of their territories by surmounting the problematic character of their cooperation. It also discloses how these two organizational frameworks condition the impact of the policy of the park and how the agents influence the local practices. The coexistence of these two forms of territorialized public action, shows us how is locally negotiated the environmental stakes. It questions however the coherence of the decisions of the park and creates important tensions within the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the method implemented under the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (UK NEA) to assess nature. The synthesis of this project was published in June, 2011. Our paper analyzes this approach by highlighting the reification process of Man-Nature relationships which it operates. These relationships, which are intrinsically subjective, are objectified through the stages of categorization, inscription and quantification. From this analysis, there emerges that beside the debates about nature evaluation, the UK NEA results should be interpreted with hindsight, because they offer a very restricted view of nature and the well-being of humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution deals with the question of the conditions of perpetuation of common pool resource institutions (CPRI) in the context of the contemporary States, as from the Swiss case. It particularly handles three assumptions - mediation, multipositionnality and complementarity - dealing with the involvement of CPRI within the main public policies (environment and land-use planning) involved in the regulation of common pool resources. This discussion enables to empirically show, with three examples, hunting leases, irrigation corporations and urban civic corporations, that the CPRI are indeed, in some cases, far from being relics of the past and that they are likely, under certain conditions, to play an important role in a number of institutional resource regimes. It also shows that, as holders of clearly defined and recognized property rights, CPRI tend to be integrated in the local arrangements for the implementation of environmental public policy and land use planning. In doing so, this contribution also suggests that the recognition and "empowerment" of CPRI, sometimes yearned for by Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues, are not free of the exclusion risks of CPRI non-members to the access resources or of concentration of control power of the latter by "local barons". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity and ecosystem services valuation: for which purpose, how and with which results? The valuation of biodiversity and ecosystem services is the subject of many studies and extensive debate. To overcome problems of principle, the real meaning of economic evaluation must be clarified in order to identify its advantages and limitations. An appropriate analysis of these services implied extending the concept of value and has given rise to a plurality of methods that may be strongly challenged. The purpose of this paper is to clarify some terms of these debates. There are reasons for being reluctant to give a price index to Nature's services, but its conservation entails costs, at least opportunity costs. Most valuation methods rest upon individual preferences, either revealed by concrete behaviours, or stated during interviews, and this is clearly an issue for items agents are not familiar with or do not perceive clearly the benefits. Finally, valuing biodiversity through ecosystem services might lead to underestimate some major parts of what constitutes biodiversity social value. These issues have to be replaced in relation to the very different objectives that may further the actual valuations. The paper concludes that valuation can offer quite a valuable contribution to conservation policies, but since the relation between biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being remains poorly understood, that it is a far too important stake to let economists alone in facing these puzzles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some postulates about sustainable development indicators: the example of aquaculture. Firstly, the authors illustrate the abundance of references and initiatives enabling to implement sustainable development in aquaculture. They develop a chart to assess such initiatives with regards to the main features of sustainable development. Secondly, this paper outlines the co-construction approach of principles, criteria and indicators, selected in reference to the assumption that implementing sustainable development requires a stakeholder commitment and a collective learning process. The construction of indicators is based on criteria which refer to principles accounting for local issues and stakeholder representations of sustainable development. Finally, the third part of the paper provides a reflexive analysis of the protocol which is proposed so as to develop a more general inventory of conditions and procedures for the appropriation of sustainable development. Focusing on these conditions and procedures outlines the need for collective learning regarding the appropriation of a new value system. They also emphasize on the organizational and institutional conditions of this learning process; this implies defining a co-construction system and taking into account intermediate elements. Consequently, the proposed approach underlines the multiplicity of indicator functions. As a result, criteria and indicators are "facilitating" and "mediating" tools for stakeholders, employed in the deconstruction/construction process for implementing sustainable development. Thus the authors agree with the recent observations stemming from the evaluation of sustainable development indicators' construction approaches. These approaches demonstrate the significance of their supporting role in the consultation process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociotecimical infrastructure required to implement environmental policies has a definite political content: it frames and influences public action, most often in an implicit way. In this paper we take a normative stance on democratic governance, which raises the need for making this infrastructure debatable. We focus on the specific case of drought management in France, which has developed an infrastructure that consists of zoning, measurement networks and threshold definition for critical flows in order to be able to assess a current hydrological situation in any place and to associate it to a specific crisis level. First we identify the various criticisms voiced by stakeholders in drought commit- tees such as challenging the infrastructure's technical validity setting out its inadequacy to a specific context, disqualifying its use due to the gap between science and the existing practice. We then suggest introducing a tool borrowed from the anthropology of techniques : the operational chain. We propose to use it to render explicit and debatable the infrastructure, its structure and content and on top of that the “regulatory science” which it stems from. This tool entails overcoming the various forms of criticism observed as well as dealing collectively with the tension between principles of justice and adaptation to local conditions. We argue that it may also provide a medium to associate lay people in the development or the revision of the infrastructure itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to develop a theoretical analysis by combining Hirschman's exit-voice model with the recent development of proximity economics about the respective roles of geographical proximity and organised proximity in the production and management of environmental issues. We show that both exit and voice solutions depend on the actors' positioning in several social structures, i.e., geographical space, resources space and coordination structures. These theoretical findings are then applied to the issue of water resource conflicts observed in the French region drained by the river Charente. More precisely, we focus on the conflict between agriculture and oyster culture arising mainly from the intensive development of irrigation. Up to the early 2000s, we note that the conflict was difficult to solve since (i) geographical proximity was imposed on the stakeholders, (ii) mobilisation of organised proximity seemed very difficult for oyster culturists, (iii) the relation, both geographical and institutional, between agriculture and oyster culture was asymmetric. Since then, organised proximity has evolved positively thanks to the volumetric management coordinated by the River Charente Institution, which has introduced some new rules for irrigation practices. This development consolidates the voice solution and allows actors to partially solve the quantitative environmental problem they are faced with. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Genetic resources: beyond the life patenting debate. Genetic diversity is generally considered as a mining stock of information, genes or traits whose exploitation should contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. These last years, the debate on its legal status focused on intellectual property rights and the "patenting of life", corresponding to a dominant mechanist representation of life. However, intellectual property rights, as well as other areas of law, have already demonstrated their ability to combine individual and collective rights and duties. The diversity of law should be further explored, as the management of genetic resources calls for legal imagination to address together their environmental, agricultural, industrial and social dimensions and to draw up balanced solutions to social and economical controversies. This broadening of perspective is of particular importance in light of recent scientific developments and of the resulting evolution of our vision of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1990s Madagascar has adopted a territorial-based biodiversity conservation policy. The institutional innovation of community-based resource management now coexists with the older expansionist protected areas model. Recent legislation has given the government the authority to enter into contractual arrangements with communities for the management of forests resources. This national environmental policy carries with it a set of regulations that has repercussions not only on physical spaces but also on access to and control of resources and their marketing. These regulations have generated conflicts over access to and use rights of natural resources. Our study of two rural territories in the Betsileo area examines these newly configured spaces of conservation associated with the transfer of renewable natural resource management (TGRNR) institutions to the western slope of the forest corridor. This paper explores the challenge of a community based forest management. The environmental regulations pose restrictions on resource users and their activities in the context of these conservation territories, knowledge systems, and power relations. The responses of local actors are inscribed in new socio-spatial strategies and practices. They raise questions about the territorial dimensions of biodiversity preservation policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the data from the French Environment Barometer EDF-R&D 2004 (national representative sample of French citizens aged over 15) and surveys by ADEME between 2000 and 2005, the paper investigates lay perceptions of the causes and consequences of the greenhouse effect, which may be considered as archetypal of contemporary environmental risks. Beyond lay lack of knowledge, the greenhouse effect gives rise to coherent and meaningful cognitions, including causal explanations, shaped by the pre-existing cognitive framework. This cognitive work, based on analogic rather than scientific thought, strings together the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion, air pollution and even nuclear power. The cognitive process is also fed by the individuals' general conceptions of Nature and of the rights and duties of humankind towards Nature. People are not greatly worried about the unseen and controversial consequences of the greenhouse effect: such worry could be one of those "elite fears" mentioned by Beck. Finally, while the efficiency of public policies to counter the greenhouse effect requires extensive societal involvement, low confidence towards both political and scientific authorities may prevent the population from becoming aware of the environmental stakes tied to the greenhouse effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent should States curb current and future greenhouse gas emissions? Integrated assessment models are commonly used to build or at least legitimize policy making. Although these models should not be viewed automatically as black boxes, they are particularly complex and are built on restrictive assumptions. Hence results derived from such models need to be taken with caution and on no account as "scientific truth". The aim of this paper is to provide a deeper insight into some of the key methods and assumptions these models are based on. We focused our work on climate change response functions. Assumptions and methods selected to evaluate the influence of climate change impacts will indeed strongly orientate the results derived from integrated assessment models based on cost-benefit concepts. It is therefore essential to point out their chief characteristics and limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Le traitement du long terme et l'insertion de la prospective dans les recherches en environnement sont des questions fondamentales pour la revue. Les auteurs s'attachent a` montrer la pertinence d'une posture de recherche privile´giant les sce´narios du possible, aussi bien pour les de´cideurs confronte´s a` l'anticipation des choix et a` l'impe´ratif du long terme que pour les e´quipes de recherche qui se trouvent souvent de´munies quand il s'agit d'envisager les dynamiques futures des socio-e´cosyste`mes qu'ils e´tudient. La parole est ici donne´e aux tenants d'une recherche spe´cifique en prospective environnementale, qui analysent l'expe´rience de leur rencontre avec des chercheurs en environnement. Ils proposent des repe`res the´oriques et me´thodologiques permettant de valider leur champ de recherche. Le propos de´bouche sur un appel a` la constitution d'un forum scientifique, associant ceux qui se sont preˆte´s a` l'expe´rience et, plus largement, la communaute´ des chercheurs en environnement qui ne peut ignorer la place croissante de ces recherches en France et a` l'e´tranger. [Copyright 2002 Elsevier]