Contenu du sommaire : Cultiver la nature

Is the agri-environment a future production ? Has French farm policy taken a turn in environmental matters ? The growing importance of arrangements for implementing regulations and directives coming from Brussels has, over the past decade or so, permanently linked environmental questions and production practices. However, planned financial incentives amount to but a small part of aid for agriculture. For this reason, the modifications ensuing from these measures primarily serve to shed light on the institutional adjustments characteristic of agricultural policy, which range from broadening objectives to redefining various actors' concepts and practices.

Clean management of nature on the Crau plain and in the Var forest Based on an analysis of two agri-environmental operations that combine raising livestock with protecting nature in southern France, this study focuses on how links are socially constructed between natural functions (as formalized by ecologists and fire wardens) and agricultural practices. Rather than running in a straight line from diagnosing the environment to implementing appropriate solutions, this process brings together quite heterogeneous facts, models and agents in constantly expanding sociotechnical networks. Taking nature into account causes quite different social configurations to emerge : what used to be deemed « archaic » techniques in the Crau area (and among persons who raise livestock) are being revived, whereas, in the Var, the position of new social agents claiming to be qualified as innovative environmental engineers is being reinforced.

Negotiations about a silent nature. Environmental measures in the West Marshlands Since 1989 in France's West Marshlands, various arrangements centered around negotiation procedures have been experimented for managing the environment. Following a decade rife with conflict, these arrangements signal a break with past forms of collective action. What problems arise owing to the representation of « natural beings » whenever they are brought into sociotechnical networks where compromises between rival social groups are worked out ? Why, despite significant involvement by environmental spokespersons, has it been hard to turn nature into a legitimate referent in relations between mankind and the environment ?

Parcels of land and their edges. Livestock and animals in the Vercors Park The application of EU Article 19 leads to new forms of intervention and control that increase the dependence of farmers in the Vercors Natural Park, France. The reintroduction, for a long time now, of wild animals and recent agri-environmental measures have shifted the traditional bounds between « wild » and « tame ». However, the conditions stipulated for raising livestock in the park do not necessarily entail changes in the technical practices of the farmers who have accepted them or in the understanding of their occupation. A more active participation in drawing up objectives and implementing measures seems to be the condition for a genuine conversion to a new way of cultivating the environment.

The Ariège Mountains between fallow land and a landscape : An illusory consensus ? Applied since 1990 in Ariège, France, EU Article 19 has reinforced the agricultural/pastoral policy that this department's council has been pursuing for over twenty years. This policy has not been able to take rural development objectives into account. The new procedure provides an opportunity for the divided agricultural sector to reconstruct its identity and for the council to expand its powers. Besides introducing an ecological sensitivity, the « landscape argument » has made it possible to reach an agreement, undoubtedly an illusory one, on forms of local development. In this context, farmers must take position. A typological analysis helps accounting for this situation.

Birds, the Park and farmers in the Cotentin Under the policy for protecting the Cotentin and Bessin marshlands in France, areas have been marked off so as to conserve the habitats of certain species, in particular of fowl. Attention is focused on this construction in an environment which bears a history and a complex set of social relations, and where farmers' actions are of fundamental importance. The application of EU Article 19 to these wetlands helps us to understand the debates sparked by the fixing of objectives and by specific practices. As a product and producer of this agri-environmental measure, the Regional Natural Marshlands Park plays, locally, a role of mediation. The emergence of this institution is analyzed in an area whose emblem has become nature.

On the wise use of threats. A report on conceptions of nature in Camargue Camargue, France, was seen by 19th-century investors as a domestic colony ; by local poets, as a land of traditions and freedoms ; by politicians in the 1970s, as a « green swath » ; and by conservationists, as a wild territory. Local residents internalized and fostered this sense of forming an economic, cultural and natural exception ; and thus willingly conveyed the image of a threatened species. To defend nature, scientists have taken up a position in opposition to economic actors, who consider their management to be the very condition for conserving the natural environment. Negotiations about agri-environmentalist measures in Camargue have taken place within this conflict about how to define threats.

From Brussels to the farm : The environment and farmers in Belgium The environmental policies applied to farming mainly stem from EU initiatives. To effect changes in agricultural practices, they imply that member countries, regions and local authorities will successively reformulate them. How has this process taken place in Belgium ? Regionalization in 1980 and the installation of a Federal state ten years later have reshaped powers. The environment has acquired a central role as a source of political legitimacy. Beyond this trend, a series of interpretations made at the local level can be analyzed as a joint restructuring of networks and identities.

Herders' contracts in the Pennine Chain English farmers were the first in Europe to experience EU Article 19. What is their social profile ? A typological analysis of the population participating in this program indicates that, beyond the quest for additional revenue, contractual adhesion is also motivated by a concern for protecting nature. Although very limited overall changes have been made in farming, changes in input do provide evidence that environmental factors are entering into account. But what changes will occur in an occupational ethics so deeply affected by a policy that threatens the autonomy of farmers' practices ?

Conflicts between protectors and producers in the Irish countryside This study of the relations between agricultural activities and the environment in Ireland describes the preoccupations of country- and town-dwellers as well as the interests of farmers and of the protectors of nature. The ambivalence in farming's technical, economic and social forms is harmful to the environment ; but it does produce the countryside as a social environment. The conflict between farmers and protectors of nature must be studied through each group's conceptions and interests ; and interpreted by taking into account the changes that, in recent years, have affected the relations between town- and country-dwellers. Questions are raised about the foreseeable consequences for farmers and consumers of applying the new Rural Environmental Protection Scheme.

Small wildfowl on the prairies. An approach to the agri-environment in North America Measures for protecting the environment in the United States and certain Canadian provinces are grounded in the principles of « cross compliance » and of « private stewardship ». Till quite recently, strong government interventions tended to «judicialize» farming practices. But for a while now, a trend can be observed toward making farmers responsible. In North America as in Europe, the question of environmental responsibility is now on the agenda.