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Summary:
In
memoriam : The brown trout, Salmo
trutta ; Urbi et orbi
(in Arabian - Morocco) ; Sommaire en
français (avec résumés des articles).
PROBLÉMATIQUES ET DÉBATS
The assets and vulnerability of French agriculture
(Dominique Dron) ; GMOs and the precautionary principle
(Catherine Larrère and Raphaël Larrère) ;
Common management of rural areas and the development of
territorial mediation (Jean-Eudes Beuret and Christophe Trehet)
; European policies favourable to pastoral ecosystems
(Joël Broyer ; The contractualisation of
society (Alain Supiot) ; Environmental
conservation: from concepts to actions (Jacques Lecomte) ;
The French Agricultural Scenery - Highlights
(Repères dans le paysage agricole français)
Global warming: the first effects to be seen on birds
(Allain Bougrain-Dubourg) ; Ceratocystis canker, a
particularly damaging disease for plane trees (André Vigouroux)
; Mad Cow Disease: the role of the media during the crisis
(Rémy Mer) "France Nature Environment" gives
it's opinion on farming (Philippe Pointereau) ; Urban
ecology or sustainable development?(Patrick Legrand).
Other landmarks, other landscapes (Autres repères, autres paysages)
From the deterioration of soils to their restoration:
(PascalSaffache)
The Kenyan Massai people and their vision of foot-and-mouth
diseasen (Jean-Philippe Rémy)
Orang-utans: the chronicle of a predictable
end…(Emmanuelle Grundmann)
Abstracts
[R] The assets and vulnerability
of French agriculture [L]
In France, agriculture represents far more than its share of the gross domestic
product (GDP) or of demography, for that matter. Due to the present
uncertainties, a strategic analysis of the assets and vulnerability of the
"French farming enterprise" is needed, taking into account the context and
perspectives and considering, all the while, that the French farming community
have the same perception as French citizens and consumers in general.
The article is focussed on economic aspects, based on three statements: 1)
the main assets of French agriculture are still going strong. 2) However,
the production systems are vulnerable (structure of the agricultural fabric,
its relationship with the land), which is worrying. 3) The present context
is particularly fragile and it is necessary to use all the assets in order
to overcome the vulnerability of production systems.
By Dominique Dron
INRA - Direction générale, 147, rue de l'Université,
75338 Paris cedex 07.
dominique.dron@paris.inra.fr
[R] GMOs and the precautionary principle
[L]
The precautionary principle is increasingly often referred to in relation
to the pollution of oceans, the greenhouse effect, nuclear energy, mad cow
disease or the high-scale diffusion of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).
This paper explains exactly what is the precautionary principle and gives
the example of the commercialisation of transgenic plants.
The authors conclude that "when relating to the precautionary principle,
reason takes over fear" They open a public debate on the risks and advantages
of this principle, a debate based on contradictory assessments on the state
of knowledge, hypotheses, doubts and scientific controversies".
By Catherine Larrère and Raphaël Larrère
INRA - STEPE, 65, bd de Brandebourg, 94205 Ivry.
larrere@ivry.inra.fr
[R] Common management of rural
areas and the development of territorial mediation
[L]
In most regions, natural resources are mainly exploited on private land such
as farms. However, there are also common goods on these lands such as the
landcape, traditional and cultural heritage and water that runs from one
farm to another. These goods are often used for different reasons and in
different ways and they are the object of constant demands from those wishing
to use them. However, these "users" do not have the same interests or the
same vision of the land… This leads to conflicts between farmers, hunters
and ecologists on the national but also local level. Common management is
the only solution to avoid the traps of status quo or of an arbitrary management
and allows the emergence of collective rather than individual needs.
Many actors agree with the concept of common management of the environment
or land. This is shown in this paper through different examples of cooperation
in Brittany. To support these examples, the authors relate the opinions of
several key actors involved in such processes. They then go on to explain
how mediation presently works and show how territorial mediation could be
developed and improved.
By Jean-Eudes Beuret and Christophe Trehet
École nationale supérieure agronomique,
département d'Économie rurale et gestion, laboratoire
Développement rural
65, rue de Saint-Brieuc, 35042 Rennes cedex.
beuret@agrorennes.educagri.fr
[R] European policies favourable
to pastoral ecosystems [L]
Corncrakes (Crex crex) are now a symbol of the alteration of pastoral
ecosystems in Europe. They first became rare in the nineteenth century in
England and the same is now gradually occurring in France. Northern lapwings
(Vanellus vanellus), a species that mostly nests on arable land, are
now somewhat taking over. Corn buntings (Miliaria calandra) have suffered
an ecological shift: they have now perfectly adapted to cereal crops, yet
they are still becoming rare. As for the few remaining couples of Yellow
wagtails (Motacilla flava), these birds which were one of the main
features of the pastures and ponds in the Dombes region (east of France)
can now be found around cereal crops. Bird wildlife has been sacrificed to
the modernisation of farming and it is necessary and urgent to set up coherent
nature-friendly forage production practices.
By Joël Broyer
Office national de la chasse et de la faune sauvage, Station
de la Dombes, Montfort, 01330 Birieux.
j.broyer@onc.gouv.fr
[R] The contractualisation of
society [L]
In common English, we talk of laws and contracts to distinguish two different
binding relations. The first induces us to respect, whether we want to or
not, a certain number of rules, whereas a contract is established with the
consent of both parties. Thus most humans are bound by laws and by
contracts.
A society becoming contractualised is a society where contracts are taking
the place of laws, or in other words, where autonomy is taking the place
of heteronomy. However, does the multiplication and generalisation of collective
binds lead to the refeudalisation of society?
By Alain Supiot
Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Ange-Guépin, BP 76235,
44313 Nantes cedex 02.
[R] Environmental conservation:
from concepts to actions [L]
Fundamental research and conservation practices are the foundations of
environmental conservation and must in no case be dissociated. Reflections
on the preservation, restoration and management of an ecosystem often turn
around three essential points: biodiversity, functionality and naturality.
Biodiversity is the easiest notion to understand as it is obvious that it
is necessary to preserve the wide and varied species that exist, whether
these species are essential or simply emblematic. Functionality is basically
the entire ecological functions that are needed to maintain an ecosystem
or habitat; however, this notion is harder to grasp and is not the subject
of as many debates as naturality. Naturality involves time, past knowledge
of the ecosystem and understanding just how disturbed this ecosystem is.
In any case, the preservation of the environment is a complex task and requires
different complementary actions to be carried out wherever they are needed.
By Jacques Lecomte
Montée des chèvres, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette.
Jlecomte@usa.net
[R] Global warming: the first effects to be seen on birds [L]
The Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux (French organisation for the protection
of birds), in the framework of the BirdLife International network, has started
to gather converging information on the impact of global warming on birds:
certain species migrate late in the season, or more precisely, they tend
to stay longer under European latitudes. In December 2000, for example, many
swallows, a migrating species that spends most of the winter season in tropical
Africa, were seen practically everywhere in France…
By Allain Bougrain-Dubourg
Ligue pour la protection des oiseaux, La Corderie Royale, BP 263, 17305
Rochefort.
lpo@lpo-birdlife.asso.fr
[R] Ceratocystis canker, a
particularly damaging disease for plane trees [L]
lane trees that surround French towns and grow on roadsides have been in
a bad state for many years, due to pore fungus and the difficult conditions
in which they grow. However, for the last ten years, an Ascomyceta fungus,
Ceratocystis fimbriata F., brought to Europe by the Americans during the
Second World War, has started to infect plane trees with Ceratocystis canker,
a particularly damaging disease for this species. INRA is developing resistant
cultivars, but in the meantime the only thing to be done is to be on the
lookout for the disease and treat it immediately.
By André Vigouroux
INRA-Pathologie
2, place Viala, 34060 Montpellier cedex
Andre.Vigouroux@ensam.inra.fr
[R] Mad Cow Disease: the role of
the media during the crisis [L]
The main event of year 2000: BSE.
The whole affair is an excellent example of the relationship between the
media and the general public, on the one hand, and the media and the social,
economic, political and legal actors, on the other hand. The paper examines
the following points: was the crisis predictable? How did the information
get around so quickly? What exactly was the role of the media? Was the media
reassuring or did it, on the contrary, amplify the problem and induce mass
panic?
By Rémi Mer
Chambre d'agriculture de Loire-Atlantique
Rue de la Géraudière, 44939 Nantes cedex 9.
RMer294415@aol.com
[R]"France Nature Environment"
gives it's opinion on farming [L]
Philippe Pointereau considers that, in many regions, farming has negative
environmental impacts and that agricultural policies favour polluting systems.
Thus, in this paper, he gives examples of "good" farming practices which
would prepare farmers for the new regulations. According to the
"Fédération des associations de protection de la nature"
(federation of environment protection associations), controlled agriculture
that does not question the present production systems, does not consider
reducing inputs and knows nothing of the social aspects should not bear any
label whatsoever.
By Philippe Pointereau
SOLAGRO, 40, rue Beau Site, 31500 Toulouse.
philippe.pointereau@solagro.asso.fr
[R] Urban ecology or sustainable
development? [L]
Sustainable development and urban ecology are two notions that are on all
researchers' lips. The idea seems to be that sustainable development is replacing
urban ecology… a new kind of ideal, a substitutional ideal, the aim
of which is to cover up the failure of urban ecology. Patrick Legrand, however,
thinks that the two approaches are more or less the same. For him, urban
ecology is a project and sustainable development an objective. Both can neither
replace one another or be opposed. They are simply two notions that are used
here or there to cover up the inability to find a solution.
By Patrick Legrand
INRA-ME&S, 147 rue de l'Université, 75338 Paris
cedex 7
legrand@paris.inra.fr
[R] From the deterioration of
soils to their restoration: [L]
the use of traditional and modern methods in Haiti In Haiti, a very poor
and unstable country, farmers transformed the plant cover of the hills into
charcoal. This led to erosion damage, which is practically beyond repair.
Ingenious, but sometimes useless, farming techniques consist in artificially
recreating organic matter (by cramming grass under a layer of soil),
slash-and-burn cultivation (often catastrophic), making rifts, building small
dams and even terrace cultivation. With the help of foreign researchers,
a more satisfactory technique has been developed: that of low stone walls,
associated with a more rational management of water…
By Pascal Saffache
Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, Département
de Géographie, Campus universitaire de Schœlcher, 97233,
Schœlcher cedex
Pascal.Saffache@martinique.univ-ag.fr
[R] The Kenyan Massai people and
their vision of foot-and-mouth disease [L]
"Northern Europe is ridden with foot-and-mouth disease and for some strange
reason the news reaches the Rift valley". For the Massai people, who consider
all herds to be their potential possessions, it is totally beyond belief.
For them, mass slaughter is an insult to world order, an insult to the Massai
cattle cosmogony, as cows may be an object of desire and envy, but certainly
not of destruction…
By Jean-Philippe Rémy
(article repris du Monde)
[R] Orang-utans: the chronicle
of a predictable end…[L]
If nothing is done, our cousins of the forest, placid fruit-eating giants,
will have disappeared in ten years. Everything is against them: forest fires,
decimating forests in the search for precious wood, slash-and-burn cultivation,
civil war and the poaching of "babies"… The young are illegally sold
as pets and when, by chance, they are retrieved, they are sent to rehabilitation
centres and taught how to live in the wild before they are set free…
an extremely difficult task.
By Emmanuelle Grundmann
57, rue Condorcet, 93100 Montreuil
emmanuelle.grundmann@wanadoo.fr
Translation: Nicola Scott
