Governing Biodiversity

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property, their residence or their holiday home). ... 4 This manner of perceiving nature postulates its own system of hierarchization of the sites ... 5 Thus, for example, comparison of two publications on the Haute Fagnes Park in 1939 and 1977.
Governing Biodiversity1

Catherine Mougenot and Marc Mormont Professors Society and Environment Unit Luxembourg University Foundation Arlon, Belgium

Fondation Universitaire Luxembourgeoise Avenue de Longwy 185 B 6700 ARLON Belgium

phone +32 63 23 08 68 fax +32 63 23 08 18 Email : [email protected], [email protected]

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The research project on which this paper is based is entitled ‘Consensus Building for Sustainability in the Wider Countryside’, financed by the ‘Environment and Climate’ (European Union, DG12) programme and conducted jointly with INRA-Ecodéveloppement (Avignon, France) and CRRU, Cheltenham and Gloucester College (Cheltenham, UK). Governing biodiversity

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Introduction Putting the question of what value is to be placed on nature, when posed in economic terms, supposes that two other preliminary questions have already been resolved: that of qualifying certain objects found in nature on the one hand and, on the other, that of designating those human groups on whose behalf this value may be placed or who have the right to place it. The present paper attempts to analyse this double presupposition, posing the hypothesis that qualifying nature, designating human beings as being those for whom nature exists and/or as those responsible for it, and finally valuation or assessment of this same nature are dynamic, contemporaneous and interdependent processes. Although these processes are mingled, they are not identical. Each of them has its own requirements, its own limitations and its own effects on the natural objects they concern. The ideas of network and of system are employed in order to give a realistic vision of the dynamics in operation. Belgium and one of its regions are cited so as to illustrate the approach we are proposing. The idea of governability (Darier, 1996) is also advanced in order to emphasize that here we are dealing simultaneously with the construction of a political and administrative (or decision-making) centre, the mobilization of individual or collective agents and constituting or mobilizing a complex of appropriate knowledge. This leads us to consider three active poles of this dynamic process: the institutional pole which is that of administration, rules and procedures; the scientific pole, which is that of the production of knowledge; and lastly the pole, all too often neglected, of environmental and natural practice, in particular here that of conservation players and, more broadly, of individuals and groups who are interested in these policies of conservation of biodiversity without, finally, forgetting the pole of ‘natural beings’ that are the object of this discussion ! The method we have selected entails two key elements. On the one hand, we shall postulate that a certain reality exists and that it is composed of a whole series of beings on which men and societies have a certain ‘hold’ (Berque, 1990). On the other hand, we refuse to take for granted at the outset that we know what nature and biodiversity are so as to examine, conversely, how it is that beings are raised to this rank or quality. This is a refusal to classify a priori social practices concerning nature within a stable and putatively pre-existent hierarchy. Whether we refer to the theory of ‘cities’ or to others, there exists a multiplicity of human relations to nature, and each of these no Environmental Valuation

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doubt entails its own forms of commitment and of distribution of skills (Thévenot and Lafaye, 1993). But as J. Law rightly emphasized in 1994, a organization is not a pure being that can be reduced to a single model for organizing practices, and scientific ecology also mobilizes relationships of passion for the objects that ecologists observe and describe, resources and instruments, associations and rules, etc. We have chosen to analyse nature conservation in terms of a network for two reasons. The first is because, in terms of effective practices, nature conservation mobilizes very diverse, heterogeneous elements: scientific data, monetary flows, texts, speeches and natural objects. However, the second reason is more basic: each change that occurs entails modifications in the chain as a whole. Here we shall employ some historical elements so as to demonstrate the pertinence of this approach. 1. The network effects Nature conservation in Belgium, as elsewhere, started in the nineteenth century in a series of associations which were primarily meetings of ‘enlightened’ amateurs who were often opposed to industrial progress and , in any case, rather anti-utilitarian. The earliest considerations of the problem of nature were rather conservative in flavour, imbued with nostalgia for an archaic order of the countryside.

Historical and

archaeological sites, country views, and moors or forests were all objects in the category of ‘exceptional sites’. These natural and historical sites, designated as being worthy of interest and of protection became the object of various groups uniting artists, men of letters, naturalists, and local worthies. Their action, which resembled more that of clubs than that of ecological activists, led to the creation of the first nature conservation network. Qualification, Designation and Social Recognition: the First Nature Conservation Network This initial manner of qualifying nature is to be found in the definition of ‘sites’ as areas ‘where the flora and fauna of a natural district are found; this district must be sufficiently large for their conditions of existence not to be modified by human activities’2.

These areas were qualified above all by botanists and zoologists

(naturalists) who accorded prime importance to the criteria of rarity and originality of the species.

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The areas thus designated were primarily those presenting the following two essential characteristics: - they were areas neglected by production activities undergoing industrial modernization or by agriculture which was beginning to be concentrated in the more productive regions and to abandon a series of traditional activities and terrains such as moors, swamps, wet areas or dry fields. They were also areas neglected by preindustrial rural industry, for example, the pools of the old forges, and also occasionally very specific areas such as land polluted by zinc ore where ‘unusual’ vegetation abounded. From an ecological viewpoint, the common feature of all these areas was that they owed much of their specific interest to previous forms of exploitation of the territory linked to an agrarian economy which is known to have diversified the environment as much as it had the countryside; - they were also available areas which could easily be acquired at a low price for the very reason that they were abandoned. The task of the associations was, for a long time by means of gifts and legacies from bourgeois or aristocratic families, to build up a land heritage that was to become the first network3 of natural ‘reserves’. This initial network also relied on the good relations established by these associations between the urban bourgeois classes and the rural aristocracy, between the prominent citizens of the small towns and the owners of secondary residences in the neighbourhood of small centres of bourgeois tourism (especially spas), and between landowners and regional artists or men of letters. This very process led to the designation of the forms of commitment demanded and legitimized: an amateur taste for natural science, the aesthetics of wild nature and countryside, romanticism and devotion to the cause, anti-progressism and the privilege of leisure. The practices were mostly those of celebrating and contemplating nature raised to the rank of a monument. However, this all did indeed constitute a network containing, by means of a series of imposed equivalences, heterogeneous elements which can be arranged in a table as follows:

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The quotation is from Jean Massart, Professor at the U.L.B., who published the first list of sites in Belgium in 1911. 3 We are consciously employing the term ‘network’ with its different meanings as a group of sites of the same kind, and as a social network of relations between agents. Our approach encompasses and reinterprets these meanings of the term Environmental Valuation October 1997 4

0

1

2

3

4

5

anti-

nomenclature

observation

private fund

purchase of

private or local

utilitarianism

flora

by naturalists

raising

available

nature reserves

romanticism

fauna

inventory

of nature and

countryside

sites

the rural past

folklore

marginal land

history

Use of the term ‘network’ in this context simply indicates that nature conservation was ‘based’ on equivalences which corresponded to the ‘intersections’ (of the network) where players having various interests interacted and each carried out their own action in their own world, that of science for some for whom the reserve became an observation site, that of art for others for whom the site became an object of contemplation and emotion to be transcribed into a creation4, etc.

All this was

rendered possible only because, thanks to money, the associations could acquire the property of the sites and thereby exclude their former users or the potential ‘predators’. However, these networks also included texts (botanical nomenclatures), conventions with the owners and the ‘natural beings’ for which these reserves constituted the habitat. We shall see the reasons for this later on. This initial network of nature protection had a certain number of basic features that need to be emphasized. In the first place, it was a series of sites each of which possessed a local character inasmuch as a nature reserve had its origin in the special initiative of a certain number of people who were often residents of the region (by their property, their residence or their holiday home).

The major nature protection

associations gradually federated these local groups into categories with their own different sensitivities: birds, landscapes, flora, or archaeology. Furthermore, the sites selected and protected were largely the result of local opportunities linked to the availability of land: for example, they were more numerous in the regions of major landowners than in those in which family farming held the moors and wet areas in their grip and exploited them under the pressure of the increasing population. This reality 4

This manner of perceiving nature postulates its own system of hierarchization of the sites which combines the exceptional character of the site and the experience of those who perceive it. Governing biodiversity

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could be ‘translated’ by stating that the nature protection of that period was mostly constituted by a series of ‘feudal holdings’ rather than as a structured and centralized organization. This absence of unification in nature protection points both to the special characteristics of the regions and the areas and to those of the social groups. Nature protection depended first and foremost on relations of identification of local and regional élites to areas: if this enabled mobilization of heterogeneous resources and multiple interests, it must also be said that the counterpart was that each site and mininetwork had its own specific features, its forms of management and, one might say, its own rules. The only common denominator was the framework of the network. The Development of the Network Several parallel changes in the fifties and sixties interacted simultaneously to redefine the agents, the forms of commitment, conservation practices and the qualification of the sites and the ‘natural beings’ themselves. The first change concerned both the definition of the problems and the groups forming the social basis of nature conservation. The local groups which were antiutilitarian and romantic began to wane (as did the funding by means of legacies and donations) before the rise of ecology as a science and the development of nature protection associations which were more and more exclusively naturalistic5.

The

classic local worthies disappeared and young generations of naturalists appeared who were often linked to university research centres without, however, the local character being lost, because each laboratory had its own lands, its favourite regions and its network of associations. The emergence of ecology as a science then gradually moved from the qualification of areas to be protected by a polysemic definition which was in fact very ‘cultural’ (e.g., rare, original, beautiful, remarkable)6 (6) to criteria expressing ‘major biological interest’. The elements taken into account were the rarity, the diversity and 5

Thus, for example, comparison of two publications on the Haute Fagnes Park in 1939 and 1977 shows that the literary, poetical and folk-lore texts have practically all disappeared; the latter are even denounced as being out-of-date (Mormont, 1984, p. 63). Likewise, the Touring Club was an association that was active pre-war but which subsequently completely disappeared from this field. 6 ‘Although the qualification of its sites was already due to the work of people recognized as being competent in this field, this was not a study based on precise criteria. In point of fact, they were strolling... ’. (Conversation with a person in charge of a nature conservation association). Environmental Valuation October 1997 6

the vulnerability of the site, but also its originality which led to comparison being made on a regional, national, or even international level. This was in contrast with the locally based forms of qualification prevailing until then.

The character of

‘complexity’ was also introduced at this time. This was defined as the time necessary for establishing the site - an eliminatory criterion, since a site in which the ecosystems represented required only a relatively short period in order to establish them was automatically eliminated however great or small its interest7.

Hence the ‘time’

required instituted a new form of equivalence. On the other hand, scientists observed that creating a reserve was perhaps not enough, since the protected sites underwent a certain evolution, were transformed, and sometimes lost their interest8. This led to a debate in conservation circles between those who refused to interfere with nature and those who, on the contrary, wished to continue the development of maintenance practices (in substitution of agrarian practices such as mowing dry meadows), speaking of ‘appropriate interventions’. However, these administrative practices presupposed the availability of human and financial means which were hard to come by. This lack of means was also the result of another, greater difficulty: that of acquiring sites during a period of intensified farming (re-allocation and draining of land thanks to grants from the agricultural authorities) and re-foresting (intensive planting of pine forests), and it led the associations to demand ever greater legal recognition for the protected sites at the very moment when the problem of regional development was becoming more and more important. The law voted in 1962 on regional and urban development was being drafted, and the whole of Wallonia was to be covered by ‘sector plans’ in which natural areas and those of natural beauty were to be defined. These plans were legally binding.

7

E. Sérusiaux, Inventaire des sites wallons d’un très grand intérêt biologique, Inter-

Environnement Wallonie, (1980), 2nd edition. 8

This was largely owing to the fact that the majority of protected sites were semi-natural areas whose ecological richness was the result of traditional practices. Since protection forbade any use of the sites, they often tended to revert gradually to a forest and hence to environments that were less diversified or less original. Spontaneous reforesting of a moor or a dry meadow has as much of an effect on the network as any other player, since this obliges the naturalists to re-define themselves and the ecologists to re-examine themselves. Governing biodiversity

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All these changes interacted and transformed the nature protection networks. They were to lead to a new provisional state of nature conservation. Conservation as an Institution In 1973, the Nature Conservation Act legalized and unified these new forms of nature protection. This officialization was to be expressed in a series of convergent changes: -

Recognition and classification of natural reserves in different categories:

Integrated, directed, national, approved, and forest nature reserves.

Most of the

national nature reserves were forest regions administered by the Forestry Commission (Administration des Forêts), which became a point of reference in this field without, however, greatly interfering in the associations. The approved nature reserves were created and administered by the private sector (the associations). In order to obtain this status, these associations had to propose a plan of administration and name a commissioner; - The private associations managing the reserves could now obtain grants to finance their management costs. Furthermore, if they were themselves ‘recognized’, they could hope for grants for the purchase of new lands. For the associations, all these projects became documented requests to be defended and funds to be obtained; they had therefore to become expert in administration; - All these operations were covered by a Nature Conservation Council where were represented scientists, the associations and of course the conservation administration which remained part of the Forestry Commission which in turn was part of the Ministry of Agriculture. This constituted the institutional centre of conservation, although it relied heavily on the associations and university laboratories, each of which retained its specific character. It was above all a centre for negotiation between them, but it was also the means for facing up to other administrations in charge of managing uses competing for the same areas. This led to a certain professionalization, even of the naturalist associations9. (9)

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In this movement, the associations gradually redefined their forms of enrollment and assigned an increasingly large place to young people whom they sought to train, sensitize and educate on nature; these young people also constituted a labour reserve for maintenance work on the sites. These actions led to the establishment of a link with the research centres, the teachers or young research workers of which became educators and ‘counsellors’. Environmental Valuation October 1997 8

This ‘institutionalization’ of nature conservation affected the protection networks but also, at the same time, their integration into other ‘games’, as well as the very ‘content’ of conservation, that is to say, the sites ‘to be protected’. By obtaining the legal status of protection, natural reserves acquired a position of strength from a juridical point of view, and even financial support which consolidated the already existing networks: this would limit their recourse to private funding and voluntary work. However, at the same time, the reserves were thereby incorporated into a perspective of regional development. This was very limiting inasmuch as any new reserve had to be justified (in terms of advisability) in the face of other potential users or uses, particularly property developers and other such persons (tourist projects in particular). This produced two basic requirements: being able to develop scientific arguments in order to justify their existence (and above all the creation of new reserves) and a change of scale inasmuch as the development regions became the areas of reference in which the reserves had to be situated. The inventories of sites ‘to be protected’ no longer simply designated the limits of remarkable sites in local terms10;

they had to cover the whole of the country,

identifying and justifying all the interesting sites needing protection. This is because they were intended to become planning instruments . This supposed that it is possible to define valuation criteria and priority criteria, a way of hierarchizing things: this in turn implied finding criteria that would ‘resume’ and ‘translate’ each site in a simple manner11. For all the above reasons, scientific valuation began to play an ever greater role in the development of nature conservation. Reserves became an administrative category of management and hence were obliged to become part of a series of operations of valuation, making inventories and hierarchizing.

These operations were achieved

thanks to the expert competence of ecologists in such a way as to be able to oppose these sites to the other networks competing on the territory.

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In the earlier view, the reserves could very well be defined simply as sites where a particular rare and original plant or animal species was to be found: this is what led to the multiplication of dry meadow sites where orchids grow, much appreciated by amateur naturalists but considered to be of little interest by ecologists. 11 This question is still on to-day’s agenda: it is preceisely this form of research which is active in the notion of ‘keystone’ species, in particular. Governing biodiversity

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In the following table we shall now give a very simplified account of this second nature conservation network:

1

2

3

3a

4

5

ecological

ecological

lobbying

legal

obtaining grants

approved or

models

analysis

associations

recognition

creating

forest nature

complexity

inventory and

files for grants inclusion in

management

reserves

vulnerability

classification

obtaining and plans

committees

‘environments’

studying

of sites

putting

rendering

conservationist

and ecosystems

development

mapping

pressure

opposable in

management

law management practice and site follow-up

Any modification introduced into a network (for example, the ‘legalization’ of the reserves and their recognition by regional development authorities) modifies the whole network since this ‘legal’ translation imposes new requirements such as expert valuation of the sites and the territory. This also modifies the way in which sites needing protection are qualified, as they must be assessed in terms of complexity and situated in a hierarchy of spatial priorities. It also modifies the forms of competence necessary for protection (public administration is more powerful than local associations, and scientific competence is necessary for management of the sites). Consequently, we can identify the constitutive elements of a conservation network as follows:

0

1

2

defining the ecological

pertinent

problems

agents

models

3 competence

4

5

6

forms of

institutions,

qualification

commitment

rules and

of ‘natural

procedures

beings’

Thus the central hypothesis is that the value ascribed to nature, or more precisely the value ascribed to a certain element of nature (we shall call this a natural agent) is a Environmental Valuation

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network effect in the sense that this value is the result of the joint and co-ordinated action of all the interdependent elements composing the network and severally performing operations (scientific analysis, classification, lobbying, etc., including site management ) . The essential contribution of the above analysis is the realization that a network is a manner of connecting these heterogeneous elements: at its different ‘intersections’ (for example, that of ‘legalization’) the network is stabilized by mobilizing an extra energy; however, it can do this only by adapting to the requirements it encounters. Hence the network can be much better described as an action being performed rather than as a stable state. 2. Networks and Systems of Protection A nature conservation network may be considered as a social and natural network. In comparison with social and technical networks, its specific character is that it includes ‘natural beings’ (species, sites and areas) which must be ‘represented’. We can therefore consider these networks as being composed of four poles: - that of practices and scientific models which describe and represent nature and ‘natural beings’; - that of institutional practices (legislation, financing) or administrative practices which give these ‘natural beings’ a specific status in the order of norms and rules; - that of conservation practices, which here includes most especially the action of conservation associations, their management of the sites, but also their action of lobbying, popularization, and all the practices that tend to mobilize agents with respect to these ‘natural beings’; - lastly, that of the ‘natural beings’ themselves. Their specific character is that they do not speak for themselves, but are always ‘represented’ by spokespersons. Nevertheless, in certain cases they are veritable agents of these networks in the sense that they are not only present (and visible or made visible) but that they also develop, increase or disappear, or else move, and are not passive entities. However, these ‘natural beings’ possess a special status since although they really act they are, of course, never capable of creating these networks. We might sum this up by the idea that they are mobilized in networks, or else that they act by or for themselves while reacting to these mobilizations.

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The key to understanding conservation networks is the dynamics of the action leading to the creation of relatively stable intermediaries between the constituent elements of the network, whereby the domination exercised by certain agents confers a strategic role upon these. This notion of intermediary will give us the basis for a better understanding of the specific character of conservation networks. Conversely, whilst nature conservation now exists in the form of an Higher Council, of a branch of public administration or of approved associations, etc., which contribute to the protection of natural areas, it is still far from constituting a unified action. The idea of the network will also help us to demonstrate and to specify the different ways of defining the problems and the various kinds of action which coexist and interact. We shall now present a few typical examples of these constructions without going into details concerning the different ways in which they continuously (re-)model themselves. An Entrepreneuring Network The

‘Belgian

Ornithological

Nature

Reserves’

(Réserves

Naturelles

Ornithologiques de Belgique - RNOB) consitute a longstanding association that is still very active to-day. It may be considered as being the central agent in a conservation network that we shall describe as follows: This is an association that is largely based on voluntary work and activism. Its conservation practices are centred on the traditional method of purchasing sites and administering them.

This implies mobilizing financial and (voluntary) human

resources and hence the development of programmes geared towards a larger public whom the association seeks to inform and to interest. The technique most employed by the RNOB is simple: turning lands into reserves by purchasing them. It is effective too, since there is no need to modify the regional plan and or to await the indirect effects of lobbying by associations on public authorities. It stops controversies, but also all forms of competition for areas that might be coveted for other uses or even for the same purpose, but by competing associations. Putting nature into a social and natural network also involves creating fractures or frontiers with other networks and other agents. Although the association obviously welcomes all sponsors, its action is autonomous and entirely directed towards the choice of rare or threatened species connected with the sites available. Here the practice is to define ‘action programmes’ Environmental Valuation

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linked to these combinations of species and sites. Let us take the case of the ‘black stork’ programme: protection of this species supposes the preservation of wet areas, a certain number of which are already in the possession of the RNOB, and the strategy consists, in a region that is crucial for this species, of keeping an up-to-date inventory of potential sites for action (very interesting areas or replacement areas). It is clear that all this is based on a scientific representation according to which this species will be able to survive only if it has at its disposal a certain number of small islands where it can nest, reproduce, feed, etc. Consequently, the association develops its action by researching all the means of acquiring or expropriating these areas. This leads to ecologists becoming active on the real estate market, anticipating sales of farm land and the disappearance of farm holdings, but also constituting an active lobby in the public administration in search of support within European programmes (e.g., Life), becoming educators for young people, organizing summer camps for the maintenance of these sites, as well as organizing cultural activities such as giving support in a certain region to a choir dedicated to the black stork or a theatrical activity based on the history of the swamps of another region. They also start negotiating late mowing contracts with farmers under a different programme, etc. Furthermore, when one or two black storks reappear on certain sites after several dozen years’ absence, they observe that nature is ‘playing the game’, obtaining a demonstration effect which can be hyped up by the media, thereby strengthening the legitimate character of the association (for example, greater political clout in a protest against a local authority initiative which would lead to the draining of a wet area). Here we may speak of an entrepreneuring network, inasmuch as everything is based on a project (programming over time, defined goal) and the network is above all seen as the mobilization of a series of opportunities (opportunism with respect to the available sites and grants) and as a series of customer publics to whom it offers activities and services, but also ‘dividends’ and satisfactions (as in the case of the black stork). It would appear that a double series of intermediaries is crucial in this network: on the one hand, the definition of a programme linking a species, present and potential sites, or else a theory and scientific observations, to information on the real estate market or farming and sources of grants;

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intermediaries capable of mobilizing the various publics (local, national or international) with open days, youth camps, publications and so on. It is easy to understand that this kind of network is not compatible with all natural or social beings: more precisely, the network puts multiple beings in relation with each other, with these beings defined by their being placed in relation with each other and adapted to the roles that must be assumed. For example, the network necessarily implies the presence of ‘natural beings’ that can be seen or grasped by the senses of laymen (for whom scientific theory may be impenetrable). Likewise, it is evident that, in order to get into the real estate market, the local leaders of the association must be discreet people and not political militants who would get the farmers’ or the local authorities’ backs up. The network is constituted by shaping its components, not only in order to render them mutually compatible (which is the function of the intermediary, the programme or the public activities), but also in order to adjust them to the other networks or actors (farmers, for example) that need to be mobilized. The Ecological Valuation Map: an Attempt to Construct a Scientific Network in the Early Eighties The drawing up of an ecological map covering the whole of the Belgian territory occurred when different processes which were trying to render plausible a new way of qualifying nature converged: - To start with, there was simply the prestige of the Dutch model: in Holland, an ecotopes map had been produced covering the entire country and responding to a demand on the part of the public authorities to map natural values so as to guide regional development decisions; - This shows the significance which, at that period, qualification in terms of regional development had taken on:

planning appeared as a valuation of human

activities collectively translated into choices of areas.

This led to the need for

correspondence to a general planning project (covering the whole of an administrative area, however defined) with a general character (that is to say, integrating local activities and the different ways of qualifying them into standardized criteria, a coordinated manner of cognition, which was both general and generalizing); - It should also be observed that at this time there appeared what J.C. Lefeuvre and G. Barnaud (1988) call a veritable hegemony of phytoecology: species of plants and their associations were perceived as true integrators of all the ecological factors. Environmental Valuation

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The inventory of plant coverage was at the heart of the study of the ecosystems, imposing its techniques of sampling backed up by photo-interpretation and, later, teledetection. The ‘ecological map’ project can thus be defined simply as a desire to produce a tool of general knowledge of the ecosystems over the whole of the territory. The method employed in order to draw up and use this map was defined as follows: given that the territory was covered by the IGN 1/25,000 scale map, each plate of the map was to be divided into 24 rectangles to be characterized by the kind of plant coverage (evergreen, deciduous, agricultural, marshy, grassy, ponds, etc.) with a symbol and an acronym for each type. The inventory was established as follows: each university possessed an ecology research team headed by a well-known professor who had himself taken part in drawing up regional or sub-regional inventories. The plant mapping was thus based on another kind of geography, that of ‘fiefs’ linked to the legitimacy of individuals, laboratories and previous attempts to protect these territories, whereby these three were closely connected. The problem with this «funny geography» was that it both left gaps but also resulted in overlaps! This led to bitter discussions between teams, in order to ensure that the whole of the country was covered, , with these discussions becoming all the more acrimonious inasmuch as the economic crisis gained ground, with the result that the drawing up of the map was an opportunity for each team to swell its ranks temporarily by signing on ‘special temporary staff’, as they were known at that time at the Ministry for Employment. This meant that in practice a group of more or less motivated but also more or less competent young scientists were set to work all over the country. For example, the ornithologists did not feel they were particularly well qualified for identifying plant species. The history of this map, and above all the results it produced, can be compared to a glass half full or half empty, depending on different points of view. It would seem that the division of the country into ‘fiefs’ survived even after the work to be done had been shared out. It would appear that the quality of the maps differed greatly according to who was ‘in charge’ of the area concerned and supervised his assistants’ work. Nowadays it is common knowledge amongst ecologists that certain sections of the map are valueless whereas others are most reliable. This motley result discouraged public Governing biodiversity

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bodies and consequently work was abandoned before completion.

The map was

published at reduced costs (the legend contained 3 categories instead of the 5 that would have been necessary) and, lastly, a stroke of real bad luck led to the destruction of a certain number of originals in the cellars of the public administration during the winter 1994 floods. In practical terms, it would seem that this enterprise, which had aimed at producing a system of total information adapted to universal use (Mermet and Barnaud, 1997), was highly unsatisfactory, and required various very major resources (here the Ministry of Employment bailed out to a very great degree this scientific project which was recognized as being of public utility). This example also demonstrates very well that the attempt to construct a network with general pretensions was based on the mobilization of very localized sub-networks that were not necessarily intercoordinated. In this case, it was a series of local insufficiencies or those concerning the coordination of scientific networks which to some extent spoilt the overall quality of this project, although certain of the fragments are in fact highly esteemed both for their intrinsic quality and because they permit the qualification of the development of the various ecosystems since the early eighties. What is more, the strength of this translation of nature into the ‘ecological map’ intermediary is also its weakness, owing to the failure to place the map in equivalence with institutional and social practices. The scientific project led to giving preference to homogeneity over the whole of the territory on the basis of ecological (phytosociological) criteria which were so specialized that they were difficult to apply, even for certain biologists themselves, and this led to the neglect of all the other specific features of the lands in question, in particular their uses and present users. No rule of equivalence between these maps (and the areas thereby defined) and preferred, prescribed or forbidden uses was ever established. By the general character it was trying to give to its construction of nature, this project aiming at drawing up an ecological map of the whole of the national territory thereby plunged nature into a forum of debate where it came into conflict with other forms of overall representation of the territory which, however, were better supported by solid institutional networks. This is precisely what happened when a regional planning map was drawn up for the Walloon Region:

a map showing sites of national interest was produced by the

naturalist associations, but it met with the accusation, backed up by influential political Environmental Valuation

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networks, that it was seeking to turn a considerable part of the rural territory into ‘Indian reserves’. Hence the failure of a scientific and universalistic representation of the territory could be attributed to the incomplete character of the network thereby constituted: scientific representation was not really solid enough, neither within its own network, nor - above all - in its connections to other networks which could have lent it added strength. Nevertheless, the ecological map is still of interest to many scientists or associations even to-day, since each laboratory that participated in the enterprise has kept its copyright on its own work and has the right to sell copies of its own notes. The result is that the maps have retrieved their local character (accessible here or there, on specific conditions) and they have found a market particularly because they can be useful to planning offices in establishing impact reports, for example, those commissioned by enterprises when setting up of new projects or else of land reallocation or local planning. A Civic System The Rio Conference popularized the concept of biodiversity, and this led to a new formulation of the problem of nature conservation. In Belgium, a national yet private Foundation (the King Baudouin Foundation) took the initiative of a new system based on giving prominence to the following two themes: - biodiversity, which entails in particular interest for ‘ordinary’ forms of nature and no longer only for wild or exceptional forms of nature; - citizenship, that is to say, proposing the idea of local action involving local communities and authorities in taking care of nature. To start with, the programme was conducted experimentally in five communes (the smallest territorial division in Belgium) and was subsequently taken over by the Wallonia Regional Administration for Nature Conservation. It then became a multiannual programme. This was a system, that is to say, a specific form of organization which defined neither the agents nor the objects in a precise manner, but which put them into communication in a more or less formalized procedure to get them to produce objects, goals and actions (which could lead to the formation of networks). Here we can speak of a civic system so as to emphasize the fact that an appeal was made to criteria of citizenship which established no form of hierarchy between the participants since the Governing biodiversity

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procedure involved drawing up an ecological report on the territory of the commune by experts. We can thus express the procedure by means of the following table:

ecological report by experts

constituting a local committee (on a voluntary basis)

inventory and proposals

work groups produce projects

drawing up a plan for the commune approval by the local authorities What Ecological Report ? The first step is to know what kind of ecological report is needed by the local groups and what definition they are giving to the concept of nature. To this end, an initial intermediary document is drawn up under the responsibility of the public authorities. This charter of the ecological report not only defines it as an inventory but also recommends drawing up propositions for the ‘ecological network’. This notion of an ecological network is itself not very clearly defined since it is derived from various different sources (the network of ecological infrastructures in the Netherlands and the principal ecological structure of the Flemish region; however, the earlier influence of the American Greenways cannot be denied either). For the planning offices selected, the ecological network is translated in the following terms: - the definition of central areas that are exclusively devoted to nature on account of their great biological interest: to some degree, this is a translation of the notion of the nature reserve; - the definition of development areas in which human activities are possible but which are of interest for the ‘development’ of nature on account of their biological interest and their function of protecting the central areas; - the definition of liaison areas or ‘corridors’ intended to facilitate wild life by permitting species to migrate or to find a temporary habitat in them. These specifications are innovatory is several ways. In the first place, they open the road to reports that are no longer simply inventories of existing areas inasmuch as they must also give some account of the ‘potential’ of certain sites, and the notion of development is geared towards the precise idea that the state of nature can be improved on the local territory without speaking of restoring or re-creating natural sites. Environmental Valuation

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Secondly, the interest accorded to productive areas (agricultural and forest) or others (roads and paths, residential sites) also opens up the possibility of actions combining human activity and conservation, although it must be admitted that nothing is said about the means for obtaining these ‘combinations’. In the way in which they draw up their reports, the various scientific agents thus mobilized will in fact re-translate the prescriptions of these specifications in terms of their specialist capacities, their links with the universities, with the territory of the commune, and their ability to create an interdisciplinary project12, etc., but also, in the last place, in terms of the characteristics of the territories concerned. What Form of Mapping for the Local Ecological Network? The idea of an ecological network is innovatory yet vague, and the system established in order to promote it is totally open, giving rise to new forms of communication and combinations between different natural states, uses, and managers or users (in fact: citizens). Its absence of precision, its wavering between a present state and the potential state of nature, and its openness to agents whose status may vary greatly, are bound to be apparent in the hybrid character of the map as defined by the specifications, particularly in the legend proposed. Whilst the criteria employed for the ecological map were apparently complex, in any case they required considerable competence in phytosociology. However, they remained within the limits of the single scope of describing the plant coverage existing at the time of the inventory. The map of the ecological network is apparently much more simple, yet it is complex too if it is considered as being the simultaneous mobilization of different aspects: - It is not only an inventory of what actually exists: the potential value of nature is also present on this map inasmuch as it can be restored or can make the ecological network function or ‘keep going’ - this is, in particular, the sense of the development and liaison areas; - As concerns the determination of the central areas, the criteria that can be employed are those of the ecological map (remarkable plant coverage), of former 12

The planning offices approved by the public authorities are either university research centres, associations, or else ‘private enterprise’ type offices. This all goes to show to what extent expertise is dispersed in the world of nature conservation. In point of fact, ‘pure’ cases are rare, since certain

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inventories (areas already classified in other inventories or other procedures - regional, national or European -); but also features such as the steepness of the slope (in wooded areas) or the poor drainage of sites rendering them unsuitable for intensive production but of interest for nature. Furthermore, ‘in order to simplify matters’, the project authors will be informed (by a letter sent afterwards) that it has now been decided that any area that is no longer the object of economic exploitation may be classified as a central area. This extra indication will resolve as many problems of classification as it will create others; - For the development areas, the description is equally hybrid, especially since these sites were not qualified in previous inventories (which dealt only with remarkable nature).

For example, orchards of standard-height trees can also be classified in

development areas, and they are given an extra symbol. This special qualification seems to be owing to the fact that such standard orchards are part of the landscape, bearing witness to the bygone world of rural life; - These two kinds of areas (central and development areas) need to be further subdivided into closed and open environments (forests and others), and this is justified by the fact that the nature conservation problems are different in these two cases, as are the managers concerned. Despite various attempts to adjust it, this legend given rise to a fairly large number of difficulties of interpretation, and ultimately, different ways of solving them. In summary, we can classify these difficulties as follows: - They can relate to the qualification of natural elements taken in isolation: certain sites can be viewed simultaneously as central areas, development areas, or liaiso areas, depending on the scale and the viewpoint adopted, or again according to the species considered; - There is also a confusion between the existing state and what is potential, between what is intrinsically noteworthy, and what is noteworthy functionally speaking; - The value of natural elements can be appreciated equally by reference to the territory of the commune, or based on a larger ensemble, for example the small

associations are closely linked to research centres, or else the research centres are assembled within commercial type private associations. Environmental Valuation October 1997 20

region: too many central areas within a particular commune could lead partners to believe that they can sacrifice some of them, too few such areas could demotivate them; - And finally, natural spaces are also evaluated on the basis of the compentence and durability of the human networks which can take care of them and/or existing or acceptable legal structures. A simple example can illustrate this process. A report writer identifies in a particular commune a specific site which has never before been listed. Due to the construction of artificial lakes which have had the effect of raising the groundwater level, we observe that the meadows upstream have become wet. By a providential chance, this land is exploited by a farmer (old or negligent) who grazes only one cow on them. The conditions now exist for a rich vegetation which is interesting for the botanists. But then the question arises: how can we justify categorizing this site as a protection area, where the conditions for maintaining this vegetation appear so fragile and so hazardous. Constructing a local ecological map containing a definition of the ecological potentiality therefore involves scientists in anticipating the interest which certain players can have in the sites and in their classification, or, vice versa, the resistance which players can oppose to such classification. Which Projects? The local groups formed differ notably from one commune to the next, and the panoply of projects proposed is very vast. The main instruction given to them was to develop a project «in partnership», i.e. to give priority to projects which involve different players: for example a conservation association and a school, a public administration department and a district committee, etc. This instruction is patent of different interpretation by players: as a civic instruction to achieve the largest possible participation of groups, as a more technical instruction to negotiate between the parties concerned (for example the roads authority and naturalists concerned for an ecological management of roadsides). Globally, this is an instruction which pushes local actors to seek convergences of interests between players and land users. The procedure makes provision for constituting working groups which will develop concrete projects forming a communal plan. This plan will then be approved by the local authority which will commit to carrying it out in cooperation with the Governing biodiversity

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working groups and everyone who has committed to these actions. Such a procedure is obviously open to all the ways of seeing nature as a problem which can exist within a population. For certain people, for example, it will be reinterpreted in terms of public cleanliness and combating unauthorised tipping, whereas local naturalist associations will frequently attempt to use these local operations to develop projects to protect sites which they had not yet been able to protect. This can also be the occasion for developing projects for educational sites (management of an ecological pond by a school and an association). This structure therefore creates, in each local community, a process which is largely undetermined, given the substantial variations in the composition of the local committees, and the diverse nature of the territories and of the individual persons involved. It also has an inducement effect in that that it defines a pertinent territorial area (the local commune) and a form in which individuals can put themselves forward: local citizens, i.e. based on their capacity as inhabitants, can give priority to a domestic vision of nature in their vicinity. In such a structure, a qualification of ‘natural beings’ and the criteria enabling them to be placed in hierarchies are not available: they can give rise to various forms of competition, or, on the contrary, be the subject of agreements, which remain primarily local. Towards Networks? The networks which can be formed based on this procedure have until now often been local micro-networks organized around projects for specific sites. What are the original features of these networks?

On the one hand, these

procedures make it possible to create new ‘natural beings’ based on changes in practices themselves. This happens, , for example, when an arrangement is arrived at between a farmer and an ornithologist to structure the wet area in his field. This marshy and unproductive zone is an nuisance to the farmer, because his cows get kneedeep in mud and dirtied. But going without it would deprive his herd of access to stream water. He envisages filling it in, which does not make it much more productive but which would avoid these practical disadvantages. However, this zone is coveted by the ornithologist as a potential owl nesting area. After discussion, the partners agree to create a tree hedge which will serve both as a barrier for the cattle and a useful shelter for birds, at the same time as allowing access to the stream. This example, Environmental Valuation

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undoubtedly microscopic, illustrate the possibilities which such a negotiating structure can offer in creating original solutions to conflicts of value in the use of nature. On the other hand, these local structures make it possible to negotiate solutions which combine legal instruments, technical structures and site usage. In another case we have an artificial lake, which is in fact a water retaining area aimed at preventing flooding in a little valley. As such it is managed by the equipment and transport authority which controls the water flow. Around this lake has developed a biotope which is interesting to regional ornithologists who have their eye on this zone as a potential nature reserve. But this lake, which is managed by the commune, is also claimed by the fishing association.

And finally, pressure is also placed on the

commune to accept its being used by local wind-surfers. Here we find ourselves in a classical conflict of values. The local biodiversity protection operation has led ecologists to classify this lake as a central area (i.e. potentially defined as a reserve) and to propose its classification as a Wet Area Biological interest, making it a site exclusively given over to nature. This solution would necessarily entrust management of the site to the Nature and Forests Authority, which would exercise its policing powers over it. But this does not please the Ministry of Transport, which calls for an annex to the classification project ensuring it that it can maintain the function of levelling out high water levels and giving it the necessary access to corresponding operations. But here the commune would also lose all control over the site, which annoys anglers, whom the local elected representative defends in the name of defending «democratic» fishing. Finally, the decision could involve keeping management of the site in the hands of the commune, but with a commitment by the latter to forbid any water sports. Anglers, who do little to get in the way of the birds, will always be authorized to use it subject to surveillance by the commune and the Transport Ministry will offer a guarantee that it will not authorize any new installation on the site. What we have in such situations are very local-level institutional rearrangements, involving at times tacit agreements and which are based as much on the solidity of networks of social relations as on regulations. Here negotiations between the site users have ultimately permitted a sort of implicit classification (more or less satisfactorily for the naturalists), whilst constructing a network of users, based on a minimum of institutional guarantees. Governing biodiversity

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These examples illustrate the forms of negotiations and innovation which these procedures permit. They reveal that, unlike an ecological map which seeks to be general, and another one which seeks to stabilize nature by the force of law (formal planning which can define protected zones), the localized civic structure is able to create new compromises, new qualifications and new spaces. On the other hand it has a lot of difficulty in finding, within the institutional apparatus, the instruments for stabilizing local arrangements, in short in finding general (and in particular legal) forms of stabilization. 4.

Dynamics

The three types of networks we have summarized are examples. They indicate that different dynamics go to make up what we call nature conservation, as a function of the three constitutive poles, each of which tends to be located at the starting point of network building. This concept of dynamics refers to the following hypothesis: players seek to base themselves on strong points from which they develop their action, enrol other players and seek to stabilize each of the network nodes. Depending whether they start from legal definitions, scientific structures or players’ practices, these networks have their strong and weak points. They also have a specific way of constructing themselves, and developing intermediaries. We will summarize, whilst all the time emphasizing that each of them is in no way exclusive of the others. Entrepreneurial structure The enterprise-market model is a form of network structuring which gives priority to the definition of precise and high-yield objectives: this yield can be defined in different ways, for example in terms of a need to take urgent action to preserve a threatened species, but can also be expressed in terms of the number of persons mobilized or size of area concerned. In short, this is a model based on the performance of the action, and of the demonstrable result, and is mobilized by force of public opinion or by the sums of money gathered. The ‘natural beings’ which will receive priority in this action model are necessarily beings with a high symbolic value: priority will be given therefore to beings which are out of the ordinary, which are in the process of disappearing or which will be reintroduced, equally sites which any modification would irreversibly transform. The scientific resources mobilized are left in the shade, so as to avoid Environmental Valuation

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controversy, and priority is given to using the most direct and the simplest possible form of legal protection: buying the land. One can continue this image of the entrepreneurial model by comparing the forms of interest which are aroused when searching for «shareholders». Partners «invest» time, money, and interest in return for concrete and/or symbolic «profits»: taking part in the action, feeling responsible, or seeing the black stork….. The style adopted towards public authorities tends to be that of lobbying. This model of network construction is in clear opposition to the practices which take place in local programmes and which we have described earlier. Here the network structures itself essentially by bringing together social players in a participative structure, with everyone given an equal right to intervene. The ‘natural beings’ can be extremely varied, as well as the practices and the forms of commitment demanded. This can very well involve an attempt to bring under one roof leisure practices (fishing), conservation practices and more utilitarian practices in objects which will be even more hybrid by the end of the operation. But in most cases, all that is obtained is micro-networks which will finally be stabilized, but in a very diverse ways, through the sanction of local public will (which is exercised in fact only in public areas), through support from public measures (for example agrienvironmental measures), through new agreements within the public authorities concerned, or finally through the voluntary commitment of individuals and associations. To this is added the difficulty of integrating the results revealed by the ecological network’s local map: how do we adjust these priorities to the micro networks’ possibilities of action? Scientific Structuring The approach taken by ecologists can also aim at a certain universalization of the nature represented, i.e. seeking to produce an intermediary which is fairly generally valid, for example including in the representation a large diversity of spaces (a vast territorial area) and a wide variety of species. This representation frequently takes the form of site inventories, based on nomenclatures. The pretension to general validity pre-supposes first of all the constructing of a solid and homogenous data production network, with the need to control the collection and transcription of this data into databases and maps. In other words it

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pre-supposes a scientific network which, in the case of the region studied, is still too weak. But these scientific representations in the form of maps can prove effective only if relays are established with the institutional system (which can give legal guarantees) and with the social practices of the users of the territory. Hence, we must for example include in the representation equivalencies with criteria which are pertinent for users, for example pedagogical criteria which can indicate to farmers or to the farm administration ways of arbitrating between priorities13. In this case, it is important to move back down to a much more local level of observation and analysis. The evolution of scientific ecology also increases the difficulty of constructing a representation of nature which is at once stable and general. Today, the central hypothesis of evolutive bio-geograhy can be proclaimed as follows: Whilst the properties of an ecological system transcend the sum of those of a simple collection of individuals, populations or species, the fact is that they are located within time or space scales which are at once specific and interdependent. The fact is that such language becomes difficult to translate into the language of ‘ordinary’ players. On the other hand, their intervention is essential given the impossibility (for scientists) of apprehending everything and then protecting everything: only the expression of a social demand will make it possible to define those ‘natural beings’ towards which players are capable of exercising a ‘responsibility for their heritage’. Here we are back to the essential role of the two previous networks (even if the local structures themselves are until now embryonic). Territorial Integration Another way of building a network consists of playing on the alignment of players around issues linked to a particular territorial area (Deverre). This is a model for which we have not given any example here, but which could be illustrated by the conservation dynamics in regional natural parks. Here the principle of action is rather to constitute a natural heritage common to several networks of users, for whom the

13

This can be undertaken at the local level, for example when, in a farmland restructuring operation, priority is given, based on an ecological inventory and a soil map, to maintaining or even replanting hedges in an zone to be used more for grazing, in exchange for the destruction of certain hedges in areas where the type of soil leads to priority being given to more intensive growing. Environmental Valuation October 1997 26

‘natural beings’ in question can be retranslated into the logical structures of different uses. In this model, the central player will focus on a strongly territorialized definition of nature14, linked to a precisely defined space, but which is patent of various interpretations: orchards of full-height trees can be interpreted as an inherited heritage (in terms both of genetic resources and local heritage), but can also constitute an attractive landscape which gives a high quality image to the mini-region, and based on which one can hope to develop tourist activities or saleable processed food products. The creation of territorial networks therefore supposes the convergence of different ‘natural beings’ which are appropriated in different ways. This convergence is far from automatic, precisely because it presupposes the building of a network which cuts across sectoral, professional or administrative networks. It is all the more easy to obtain this network whenever a principle can be formulated which unifies the way the territory is apprehended: this can be priority for tourist use or the specific valorization of the region linked to forms of production, ground uses, and representations stabilized in the form of labels or trade marks. 5. Governing Nature? By way of conclusion, we will focus on two questions: how is the value of nature and of biodiversity created and maintained? How can public action with regard to nature be characterized? It is first of all essential to discuss the hypothesis which posits that what gives value to nature is its networking. Is not in fact one of the lessons of this analysis that none of the poles making up the conservation effort is capable, on its own, of constructing a ‘value’ of nature? Rather, a ‘natural being’ (species, area) acquires value only by mobilizing, in a chain, a series of forces which fall under the heading of science, social and economic interest, and their translation into legal or contractual forms? This creation of value takes place in fact in two ways: - by creating or stimulating convergencies of heterogeneous interests: this is why the territorial model often appears the most appropriate to the preservation of nature, as it introduces common ‘natural beings’, which can be appropriated in different but 14

It is important though not to confuse territoriality and locality: most territorial networks in fact mobilize networks and actors from outside the territorial area, the latter is simply the place of connection and convergence of the networks mobilized in this fashion. Governing biodiversity

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coordinated ways. In this way a landscape can have simultaneously an aesthetic, touristic, natural and economic significance, and at the same time constitute a monument, a local heritage giving a sense of identity and offering a marketable capital, or a politically negotiable value. - by introducing conversion rates of the values involved: what a conservation network does in effect is to establish, at different points of the network, ways of converting one value into another, for example a biological diversity index into a number of cattle per hectare and then into an agri-environmental premium; or a few individuals of a rare species into a number of hectares of wet zone, then into a number of visitors or subscriptions for land purchases. As a result, the placing of a value on nature cannot be limited just to translating into a market or monetary universe. Ascribing a value to nature presupposes a series of operations in which the forms of commitment (of grasp on nature and of price placed on nature) are very variable and can link equally well passions, forms of social life, legal protection, and economic interests. As a result the question of the «value of nature» could be better posed by defining it as a question of governing nature. We have seen that the protection and then the conservation of nature have been brought about largely in opposition (or indeed in protest) to industrial and technical development, and in many cases by a minority which portrays their action as dramatic, whereas parallel to this a strong integration of socio-economic networks and state institutions was taking place. This movement has also largely emphasized the opposition between nature and humanity, insisting on the radical nature of the representation of wild nature. Its demand has therefore long been - and still remains - for an institutionalization of nature in the administrative and legislative apparatus, equivalent to other activities, or other collective assets. Today, these forces are somewhat counteracted by an inverse movement which highlights the low degree of autonomy of public policy with respect to the players which construct it but who are necessary for its implementation (Lascoumes), as well as the hybrid, mixed or heterogeneous character of the objects and objectives pursued (Latour). Indeed, on one hand, it becomes clearly apparent that implementation of a conservation policy can be undertaken only on the basis of a qualification process Environmental Valuation

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involving multiple players, which presupposes the construction of negotiated intermediaries. But in addition the implementation of a global policy, or the building of an ecological map, as soon as they cease to concern «exceptional» entities and turn towards normal nature, also presuppose efforts of

translation, mobilization and

structuring, where the public player is nothing without the mobilizing force of all these mediators. On the other hand, nature, for ecology itself, ceases to present itself as a museographic task focusing on exceptional sites, and concentrates instead on the diversity of natural, semi-natural, intensively exploited, marginal or recreated sites, and towards practices of restoration as much as of protection. In all these operations action-taking requires the mobilizing of different social demands which are even more unpredictable than the development of the species themselves. In this way, governing nature will intend to become increasingly a multiple and multiform activity, which will gain its strength, not from a single value arbitrated by a central authority, but from multiple combinations, which authorities will have the job of promoting rather than limiting. Références Berque A. (1990), Médiance : de milieux en paysage, Montpellier, Reclus. Blondel J. (1986), Biogéographie évolutive, Paris Masson. Chapuis J.L. et al, (1995), L'éradication des espèces introduites, un préalable à la restauration des milieux insulaires, Natures-Sciences-Sociétés, n° spécial, volume 3 : 51-65. Darier E. (1996), Environmental Governmentality : The Case of Canada's Green Plan, Environmental Politics, vol. 5, n° 4 : 585-606. Deverre C. (1997), La mise au propre de la nature. La construction sociale de la protection des milieux naturels de la steppe de Crau et des massifs boisés du Var, inédit, INRA-Ecodéveloppement, 34 p. Fabiani J.L. (1995), Les recréateurs de la nature. Enjeu et justification d'une pratique paradoxale. Natures-Sciences-Sociétés, n° spécial, volume 3 : 84-92. Larrère R. (1994), Une leçon de Rousseau, Le Courrier de l'Environnement de l'INRA, 22 : 5-13.

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Latour B. (1995), Moderniser ou écologiser ? A la recherche de la septième cité, Ecologie Politique, n° 13 : 5-27. Lascoumes P. (1995), Rendre gouvernable : de la traduction au transcodage. L'analyse des processus de changement dans les réseaux d'action publique, in La gouvernabilité, CURAPP, P.U.F., 1996. Lefeuvre J.C. et Barnaud G (1988), Ecologie du paysage, Mythe ou réalité, in Bulletin écologique, t 19, 4, pp. 493-522. Law J. (1994), Organizing Modernity, Oxford, Blackwell, 206 p. Mermet L. et Barnaud G. (1997), Les systèmes de caractérisation de zones humides : construire l'expertise sous pression politique, in Natures-Sciences-Sociétés, vol., n°2, pp. 31-41. Mormont M. (1984), Parcs naturels et gestion de l'espace rural, Arlon, Fondation Universitaire Luxembourgeoise, 134p. Ollagnon H. (sous la dir. de) (1996), Audit patrimonial, Evaluation stratégique du projet pilote de gestion communale de la biodiversité en Wallonie, rapport, INRA, Paris Grignon. Thévenot L. et Lafaye C. (1993), Une justification écologique ? Conflits dans l'aménagement de la nature, Revue Française de Sociologie, n° 4 : 495-524.

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