Biodiversity: Multiple approaches, the real issues

A new look at the diversity of living species

Bernard Chevassus-au-Louis

Given its immensity, which will take centuries to inventory, given the deeply unknown complexity of interactions between its levels of organization, nature, despite its familiarity, still  eludes our understanding of its structure and workings. We have also discovered how fragile it is, and how much humanity is responsible for the diversity of life everywhere on the planet. This twofold observation leads us to supplant a linear view of the relations between knowledge and action with a conception of a “spiral of  learning”, a process whereby the questions “What do we want?” and “What do we know?” mobilize all parties interactively.

Biodiversity, an issue in organizing economically productive land

Henri Décamps

The basic role of biodiversity as well as the need to protect it is no longer seen only as a matter of nature reserves, wildlife sanctuaries and parks. Owing to concerns based on production as well as conservation, these ideas have gradually suffused the management of economically productive farm- and woodlands. Meanwhile, the “ecology of landscapes”, a rather recent branch of environmental studies, presents us with a new view of the interactions between the spatial organization of ecosystems and the dynamics of biodiversity. This major change can lead to improving the management of biodiversity and, thereby, the resilience of farm and forest ecosystems. Despite contingencies of all sorts, managing the land used for economic purposes must, above all, focus on the notion of duration.

 
Biodiversity faced with environmental changes: The example of European forests

Jean-Luc Peyron

Is a rise in temperature, though still small, already affecting European forests? Is it a risk? The changing history of vegetation on earth can shed light on current trends and help us foresee those to come. We thus learn that nature has a not-to-be overlooked capacity for reacting to climatic phenomena. It remains to be known whether forests and the uses to which they are put can be maintained. The still uncertain answer calls for innovations in forestry.

 
Farming, herding and the maintenance of biodiversity in the Marais Poitevin area

Pierre Roussel

How to organize rural development and land management in the Marais Poitevin area of western France? What regulations to adopt for waterways and wetlands? What equilibrium to strike between grasslands and big fields, between conservation and development? What choices to make about economic diversification? Though multifaceted and complicated, the question of marshlands ultimately calls for a limited number of major decisions. The feasible technical and economic decisions are, in the main, already known; but policy and institutional decisions must still be made.

 
Hunting and biological diversity: Protecting species or individuals?

Jean-Pierre Raffin

Both science and society have debated the issues of hunting and biological diversity. Since the 1970s, a longstanding quarrel has set hunters and conservation societies at odds over the effects of the number of slain animals on game populations and the social impact of organized hunters, who are seen as being opposed to measures for protecting species and habitats. The history and analysis of a measure that, by maintaining the confusion between hunters and public authorities, creates two categories of citizens and obstructs dialogue…

 
Spotted owls and forestry in the United States, a Frenchman’s point of view

Frédéric Gosselin

The Northwestern spotted owl is a textbook case in conservation biology: lawsuits between environmentalists and industrialists, considerable funding for research and, in 1993, the release of the Northwest Forest Plan. But one of the most interesting points in this famous case has to do with the lessons to be drawn and questions to be raised about the interactions between science and forestry. How do research results affect forest management, its debates and decisions? How have relations these two fields been organized? Have their different cultural frameworks and time scales been able to operate together? How to keep the requirement of taking science into account from leading to risk-averse management or policies?

Managing biodiversity: What strategies for a joint heritage?

Henry Ollagnon

The causes for decreasing biodiversity are diffuse, complex et not immediately perceptible. Neither laisser-faire nor restrictions can be major ways to improve management. The solution is to look for a commonweal, a joint heritage based on a general interest, that will lead to a local and vertical responsibility for biodiversity, whereby everyone becomes co-actors in the future of their territory and of the planet. It is within our scope to take up this challenge so as to maintain biodiversity by turning it into a local, common heritage with a general interest. This approach holds promises for coming generations; but we must, at present, place sustainable development on solid grounds. What is necessary is the confidence and willingness to work together.

 
Biodiversity in public works: An environmental and socioeconomic assessment

Laure Tourjansky-Cabart and Bertrand Galtier

Science is shedding ever more light on the advantages of biodiversity for both our own and coming generations. Nonetheless, the necessity of preserving biodiversity often seems to be a poorly understood regulatory and constitutional restriction instead of being seen as a way to prevent full-fledged damage, even to the economy. It is worthwhile re-emphasizing this issue so that more attention be paid to it in planning facilities and transportation… in the name of the principle of precaution, now enshrined in the French constitution.

 
Protect: Why and how?

Christian Barthod

In France, advances were gradually made in conservation during the 1960s but with the conviction that only strong government intervention could preserve our natural heritage. The first turning point combined prohibitions and management until, in the quest for a more global approach, the debate about protecting species and ecosystems raised tough questions for traditional regulatory methods. Regulations still have a part to play but within a general strategy with a stronger emphasis on assessing results — without mentioning the literal revolution that EU law has set off.

Biodiversity : For what, for whom, by whom?

Gilles Benest

Biodiversity is now in jeopardy. Although not the first time that biodiversity has decreased on the planet, it is the first time that human activities are held accountable and, too, the first time that humanity’s future is at stake. How to preserve our natural heritage? How to make private and collective interests compatible? Who can act? Conservation societies seem best suited to do this; they have, for a long time now, set the example and been able to win civic support.

Biodiversity: Sustainable development and geography

Yvette Veyret and Laurent Simon

Protecting nature means, first of all, setting it outside the range of human influence. By emphasizing the problems of maintaining biodiversity, the advances made in ecology other the past few decades have brought the foregoing idea, which is still widespread, under question. Paradigms are shifting. Beyond any purely naturalistic analysis, the social sciences have opened new perspectives, in particular geography, which places biodiversity in a territorial context and thus takes into account the parties involved as well as social practices and issues. Talk about sustainable development is evidence of this trend, even though it sometimes serves as a cover for efforts to set nature aside in a reserve.

 
Miscellany

“Factor 4”

Christian de Boissieu, Richard Lavergne and Jean-Claude Gazeau

For France, the “factor 4” objective is to divide by four the emission of greenhouse gases (especially CO₂) by 2050, which now amount to 140 million metric tons. In proportion to its population, France may, therefore, emit 38 million metric tons. Although the European Council approved in March 2005 goals for the middle run (a reduction “from 15% to 30% by 2020” for developed countries), no long-term strategy has been adopted at the European level. France can set the example and hope to win over some of its neighbors. However global warming calls for a worldwide response.