Sports de nature, développement durable et controverse environnementale.

This paper aims to highlight the links between outdoor sports, sustainable development and the environment. The action-research work the author analyzed was designed to help local stakeholders manage their interactions and take the environment into account in developing and institutionalizing outdoor sports under a Scheme for spaces, sites and paths relative to outdoor sports. After briefly presenting the situation of outdoor sports, the article examines critically the literature on the environmental impact of these activities. It then analyzes the conditions in which a tool for environmental evaluation was evolved and the stakeholder interactions it induced. To conclude we show the difficulty that arise in establishing a process of participative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]