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Summary:
In
memoriam : the Little Bustard ;
Urbi et orbi in Greek.
Sommaire en français (avec résumés
des articles).
PROBLÉMATIQUES ET DÉBATS
A non-nostalgic goodbye to Brittany's standard orchards (France) ( Samuel Perichon); Searching for nature (Jacques Lecomte); The insurability of GMOs and the industrial risks: debated decisions (Thierry Hommel); Managing radioactive waste: communication and public policies (Yves Le Bars); The pedagogical and methodological methods used to welcome new populations to rural environments: the example of the Massif Central (Bernard Farinelli).
The French Agricultural Scenery - Highlights
(Repères dans le paysage agricole français)
GMOs and agriculture: public action options. A summary of the consultation group headed Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis; Long-eared owls and their diet. A study carried out on the sand dunes of Slack (Pas-de-Calais, France) (Luc Martin Bouyer et al.); The state of the State's water (Jean-Pierre Nicol).
Other landmarks, other landscapes (Autres repères, autres paysages)
The Reunion and the depths of the ocean: from becoming aware
of the deteriorations to setting up a reasoned management project (Pascal
Saffache); Non-governmental associations and organisations:
expectations galore
(Patrick Legrand).
* At the saints' table: a short and yet amusing gastronomic and legal hagiography (Jean-Paul Branlard); A glossary of agricultural terms (Frank Pervanchon and André Blouet).
Abstracts
A non-nostalgic goodbye to Brittany's standard orchards
(France)
Standard orchards were longtime a symbol but have now become a simple folkloric
tradition that only a few impassioned farmers still defend.
On the outskirts of Rennes, apple trees were an important source of income
for farms. However, as profitability became more and more important, farmers
abandoned this culture because of its uncertain outlets and the lack of laborers
to harvest the fruit.
Nevertheless, beyond a simple economic depreciation, apple trees suffer from
a real resentment on the behalf of many farmers.
This feeling has strong roots and mainly stems from the many hard and long
days of apple picking. Intensive orchards are replacing the more traditional
forms through the double process of clearing and restructuring. To understand
the different perceptions and representations associated to these trees,
Samuel Perichon carried out a survey on three generations of farmers from
the same family evoking their relationship with apple trees.
By Samuel
Perichon
s_perichon@hotmail.com
Searching for nature
Natural nature, set nature, manmade nature, created nature, artificial
nature… there are many kinds of "nature" and it isn't always easy to
find one's way amongst them all.
Jacques Lecomte recently tried to show the importance of the three attributes
of the ecosystem: biodiversity, naturality and functionality. Naturality
is generally the least respected of these elements and is extremely rare
in metropolitan France.
It is for everyone to decide what he/she considers to be Nature. A certain
amount of intellectual honesty is nevertheless required, especially as regards
the background history of habitats.
"I (J. Lecomte) sincerely believe in the importance of the grasslands that
have replaced forest environments following human activities. But I refuse
to consider them as the last remnants of an ancestral steppe!"
By Jacques Lecomte
Montée des chèvres, 91190
Gif-sur-Yvette
jlecomte@usa.net
The insurability of GMOs and the industrial risks: debated
decisions
"Almost everyone agrees on the fact that industrial activities may have
consequences on the environment and public health. Insurance companies find
it difficult to deal with some of these risks, as they are not always defined;
they thus become problematic. In the first part of this article Thierry Hommel
studies these "problematic risks" that are at the heart of many debated
decisions. The second part more precisely deals with the mechanisms of private
insurance companies. And last but not least, the third part examines the
yet unstable situation of insurances for GMO farmers."
By Thierry Hommel
Laboratoire d'économétrie de l'École
polytechnique
1 rue Descartes, 75005
Paris
hommel@poly.polytechnique.fr
thommel@paris.inra.fr
Managing radioactive waste: communication and public
policies
"Nuclear energy is an eternal debate in our society: in a democracy, it is
normal for citizens to want to choose the techniques and tools that control
their lives. Radioactive waste has a particular place within nuclear energy:
it is threatening and 76% of the French population considers it to be a problem
with no known solution. [...]
In order to broach this problematic, it is first necessary to draw a lesson
from past experiences. These experiences underline that technical and social
questions are strongly interlinked and that the interaction between the different
parties involved is unavoidable.
It is then necessary to analyse the present context, the nature of the fears
associated with the management of nuclear waste and the many confusions that
exist. The present situation must lead to a dialogue of better quality. Last
but not least, it is essential to show the building process and different
parties concerned in a public policy of nuclear waste management."
By Yves Le Bars
ANDRA, parc de la Croix-Blanche, 1-7 rue Jean-Monnet, 92298
Châtenay-Malabry
cedex
yves.lebars@andra.fr
The pedagogical and methodological methods used to welcome new populations
to rural environments: the example of the Massif Central
We recently published an article on repopulating rural communes, explaining
in detail why it is necessary to act and showing the first steps of a new
movement. Since then, and in only one year, many things have changed.
Little by little sociologists have legitimised the reality of the changes
occurring in rural areas even though these changes are now symbolised by
a new modernity, a modernity that has been reinvented by city-dwellers but
also by local development groups concerned by the future of rural
inhabitants.
At the end of his four chapters, Bernard Farinelli concludes that a cultural
revolution is taking place, that rural areas will recompose themselves without
outside intervention but not without inequalities and problems. Thus it would
be better to assist this evolution, yet no real national policies exist and
these are necessary to help unblock institutional blockages such as chaotic
successions, joint ownerships and basically all negative taxations…The
author hopes that "the republican institutions will know how to assist this
social movement, considered as totally unforeseeable by some; a movement
associating the growing desire of certain regions to welcome "foreigners"
so as to continue to survive and the very strong wish of many French citizens
to lead a different life."
By Bernard Farinelli
La Thébaïde, Chemin des Fagots, 63290
Limons
magali.lanord@wanadoo.fr
GMOs and agriculture: public action options. A summary
of the consultation group headed Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis.
On line at
www.plan.gouv.fr/publications/chevassus59.html
Long-eared owls and their diet. A study carried out
on the sand dunes of Slack (Pas-de-Calais, France)
Long-eared owls mainly live in semi-open environments, on the border of forests
where they hunt preferably small mammals and especially forest rodents. The
owl sweeps down on its prey and carries it to its nest. Around the latter,
one can see the remains of its meals in the shape of regurgitation pellets
consisting of the hard and inedible parts of the owl's prey: bones, chitinous
carapaces, etc. Thanks to these pellets, we can tell the diet of these birds
without disturbing them. Using this method, a team set out to study the prey
consumed by horned owls in a wooded area near the beaches on the French side
of the Channel. The results of the study are explained in detail in this
article.
By Luck Martin-Bouyera, Laetitia
Menendeza,b, Magalie Dhaussya, David Malvoisina, Benoit
Bourela, Dominique Deroutc and Jean-Charles
Caillieza*
a Laboratoire Environnement & Santé,
faculté libre des Sciences et faculté libre de Médecine,
université catholique de Lille, 56 rue du Port 59046 Lille cedex
b Atelier In.Ser.E, université des Sciences et Technologies
de Lille, Cité scientifique, Villeneuve-d'Ascq
c EDEN 62, 3, square Bernard Shaw, 62930 Wimereux
* Correspondence : Jean-Charles Cailliez
jc.cailliez@fls.fupl.asso.fr
The state of the State's water
The State has been sentenced to give a certain amount of money to a certain
financial group. The prosperity of this group depends on the contributions
of public service users, yet taxpayers often see these taxes used for non-social
needs due to permissiveness and the lack of action of most public
powers.
Such are the real motivations of this sad and alarming article that recounts
the " Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux" affair. The company was given over 100.000
euros by the State: on the one hand, for mental distress and deterioration
of the society's image, and on the other hand, to reimburse indemnities that
the company had been condemned to pay by a magistrates' court. And all that
because a certain amount of water distributed by the company was too high
in nitrates due to a mistake supposedly made by the State… nothing had
been done to make farmers respect the nitrogen spreading restrictions.
By Jean-Pierre Nicol
18 rue Pierre-Bezançon, 94440
Marolles-en-Brie
jean-pierre.nicol@wanadoo.fr
The Reunion and the depths of the ocean: from becoming
aware of the deteriorations to setting up a reasoned management
project
The Reunion has few littoral zones adapted to seaside activities. However,
the traditional mountain tourism is progressively declining in favor of the
coral reefs with their colorful corals, fish, crustaceans, mollusks, gorgonians,
Porifera, etc. This environment is threatened by the changes in the water
temperature, by torrential rains and the polluting elements they spread,
but also by all sorts of human activities, agricultural activities and their
inputs and urban pollution…
By Pascal Saffache
Université des Antilles et de la Guyane, département
de Géographie, BP 7207, 97233 Schloecher
cedex
Pascal.Saffache@martinique.univ-ag.fr
Non-governmental associations and organisations:
expectations galore
"Beyond the universally known definition of sustainable development (the
social, environmental and economic triangle, the biosphere as a whole,
reversibility of choices, governing modes, prevention and precaution, the
long term and future generations, etc.) and when considering the society's
expectations from a voluntaristic point of view, what are the objectives
and roles of non-governmental associations and organisations, ill-known social
actors, as regards the business world?"
A long introduction and the transcription of Patrick Legrand's intervention
during a session dedicated to "the expectations of civil society in Europe"
at the first "Forum pour le développement durable et une entreprise
responsable" (forum for sustainable development and for an environmentally
responsible society), organized by "Les Echos" in Paris on March 5th and
6th, 2002. Patrick Legrand is the head of the ME&S (Environment and Society
Mission) department, president of "France Nature Environnement" and member
of the national commission of public debates.
By Patrick Legrand
INRA-ME&S, 147 rue de l'Université, 75338 Paris cedex
07
legrand@paris.inra.fr
At the saints' table: a short and yet amusing gastronomic
and legal hagiography
Saints have given names to our roads and lanes. Saints rhythm our everyday
activities. Saints compose our menus… There are helping-hand saints,
miracle-making saints and recipe-writing saints, for the starter, the main
course, for cheese and dessert…
A long list that one couldn't possibly go over without clicking (once again)
on our patron saints page, not dining saints but
agro-environmental saints!
By Jean-Paul Branlard
36 rue Rivay (bât. B), 92300
Levallois
JPBranlard@aol.com
A glossary of agricultural terms
The word "agriculture" is less and less used; it is more often qualified
by adjectives and complements. These expressions generally have a positive
connotation: reasoned agriculture, precise agriculture, biological agriculture,
peasant agriculture are amongst the most frequent expressions used.
But they can also have a negative connotation as they are sometimes used
to index farming practices: productivist agriculture, intensive agriculture,
conventional agriculture.
Frank Pervanchon, André Blouet and their collaborators have pinpointed
such terms from a large number of vast and diverse texts and have defined
them and commented upon them (from "alternative" to "food crops").
By Frank Pervanchon and André Blouet
in collaboration with Geneviève Nguyen, Jean-Pierre Sarthou and Samuel
Féret
ENSAIA, UMR Agronomie et Environnement, 2 av. de la Forêt de
Haye, BP 172, 54505 Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy cedex
Frank.Pervanchon@ensaia.inpl-nancy.fr
blouet@mirecourt.inra.fr
