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Coexistence and conflicts are common on the edges of protected areas. In our study area (Sikumi Forest, Zimbabwe), local communities use a protected area throughout the year to drive cattle. It results in (i) cattle predation by wild predators, and (ii) concerns about the capacity of the protected area to effectively conserve wild herbivores. To address the issue and better understand herders' strategies, we applied the companion modeling approach to co-design a role playing game with 10 members of this community. We demonstrate how such approach is adapted to the study of wicked environmental problems, and the benefits in terms of simulation of complex social-environmental dynamics. Through the co-design and implementation of the game, we obtained an endogenous formalization of the environment and human practices that can be used to simulate the interactions between the protected and the communal land. Based on this case study, we highlight the potential of participation at the edge of protected areas: addressing wicked problems and making research more robust by providing high quality information inputs; coping with incertitude; highlighting emerging properties of human/nature interactions. In terms of management, participatory processes should lead to higher quality decisions based on more complete information, and establish common trust and ground between local actors who have an opportunity to learn and appreciate each other's viewpoints. In the context of TFCAs, beyond their scientific value, such processes could participate to the transformation of adversarial relationships and help find new ways for local actors to work together. (Texte intégral)

About 15 % of the world’s terrestrial area has some kind of protected status. Human-wildlife conflicts, crops raiding, livestock predation, poaching, illegal natural resources harvesting, the list of issues taking place at the edge of African protected areas is long. These issues are wicked problems, characterized by scientific uncertainties and involve conflictive cultural values and interconnections with other problems. The constructivist approach of post-normal sciences (PNS) assumes that reality is socially constructed. Studying and addressing wicked problems therefore requires insights on local stakeholders’ perspectives. In this PhD we focused on interactions between the Sikumi Forest (SF), a Zimbabwean protected area, and the rural communities living at its periphery. More particularly, we focused on the tensions related to cattle herding practices. The situation shows characteristic of wicked problems: the difficulty to frame a precise problem; high uncertainties about the studied SES; incomplete scientific knowledge; competing cultural values; and the interconnection to other problems. In order to understand cattle-related interactions between rural communities and the protected area, we co-designed a participatory research tool taking the form of a role-playing game (RPG) enabling us to elicit cattle herding strategies. The RPG was used with naïve villagers (villagers who were note involved in the co-design). This PhD thesis shows how the use of virtual worlds allows researchers to cope with the catch-22 of wicked problems, that is that any action transforms the problem and brings us “back to the beginning”. The co-design of the research tool allows to deal with one of the major characteristics of wicked problems: uncertainties. In the participatory design of the RGP, these were collectively reframed through negotiation. Participation led to the appropriation of the co-designed object by local actors, as a result our project went beyond the initial ambitions and produced a multi-dimensional tool of which we necessarily lose control. In a wider perspective, we believe that with the emergence of Transfrontier conservation in Africa, participatory approaches like ours can provide alternative ways to study and manage coexistence between protected areas and their peripheries., Environ 15 % des terres émergées mondiales sont protégées d’une manière ou d’une autre. Conflits homme/faune, prédation du bétail, pertes agricoles, braconnages divers, la liste des tensions entre aires protégées Africaines et leurs périphéries est longue. Ceux-ci peuvent être vus comme des « problèmes pernicieux », caractérisés par la présence simultanée de valeurs culturelles divergentes et de nombreuses incertitudes sociales ou scientifiques. L’approche constructiviste des sciences « post normales », aborde la réalité comme le résultats d’une construction sociale, et reconnait donc l’existence d’une pluralité de réalités. La participation d’acteurs locaux dans nos démarches scientifiques permet de prendre en compte ces réalités. Cette thèse est focalisée sur les interactions entre la Foret de Sikumi (FS), une aire protégée Zimbabwéenne, et les communautés rurales vivant à sa périphérie. Nous nous sommes intéressés aux tensions liées aux pratiques de conduite du bétail. Nous retrouvons là les caractéristiques des problèmes pernicieux : difficulté à identifier le problème de manière définitive ; incertitudes scientifiques et sociales ; valeurs culturelles conflictuelles et liens avec d’autres problèmes. Pour comprendre et modéliser les interactions entre acteurs à travers la conduite du bétail, nous avons co-construit un outil de recherche participatif sous la forme d’un Jeu de Rôle (JdR) nous permettant d’étudier les stratégies locales de conduite du bétail. Nos travaux montrent comment l’utilisation d’environnements virtuels permettent aux chercheurs de s’extraire du paradoxe majeur des problèmes pernicieux : toute action modifie le système et donc le problème, sans jamais le régler. La participation d’acteurs locaux nous a permis de redessiner une vision commune des incertitudes sociales et scientifiques au travers de processus de négociation. Nous montrons comment le résultat de notre effort collectif dépasse les ambitions premières et la manière dont le chercheur doit nécessairement perdre en partie le contrôle de l’objet construit au profit des partenaires locaux. Finalement, nous exprimons notre conviction que des approches comme la nôtre sont pertinentes pour la gestion des aires protégées, particulièrement avec l’émergence des parcs transfrontaliers en Afrique australe.

Coexistence between actors living in a common environment is a recurrent issue throughout the world. In southern Africa, issues at the interface between agriculture and conservation are inescapable. Livestock herding for instance is a particularly relevant phenomenon to consider if one wants to study coexistence between protected areas and farming households leaving on their edges. Role playing games and agent based model can be used both to elicit local knowledge and strategies, and also to simulate the possible evolution of a given system. In this presentation we propose to describe a work conducted with farmers and livestock herders living in what we define as the Hwange National Park-Sikumi Forest SES (HNP-SF-SES), Zimbabwe. In our study area, cattle are driven within one of the protected areas (SF) throughout the year, resulting in (i) cattle predation by wild predators, and (ii) concerns about the capacity of the SF to effectively conserve wild herbivores. In order to better understand herders' strategies, we co-designed a role playing game with 10 members of this community. Such game is a tool that allows us to elicit herding practices, and to test different scenarios (e.g. climatic variations, alternative governance rules). We assume that a co-designed game will better represent players' reality, thus enhancing appropriation and finally allowing us to collect relevant data. The design process is already a direct first step towards an agent Based model as we co-formalized the local environment with the design team. Results of the playing sessions will be presented, so will the process of translating them into an autonomous agent based model used to simulate possible trajectories of our studied system. (Texte intégral)

The companion modeling approach involves local stakeholders as well as scientific domain experts to draw new knowledge from agent based simulation models of renewable natural resource management systems by giving effect to long-term visions discussed and analyzed collectively. Allowing stakeholders collectively to see progressive changes in the system stimulates their joint ability to comprehend the mechanisms of decision-making processes (theirs and also those of other participants). In this demonstration of the companion modeling approach, we present some examples of context-specific participatory agent-based simulations. (Texte intégral)