Penser la gouvernance de la biodiversité à travers l’analyse des dynamiques socio-écologiques

Résumé Fr En

Cet article propose des pistes pour repenser la gouvernance de la nature – notamment dans les espaces urbains à partir de l’étude des différentes représentations de la nature, de leur construction sociale et de la manière dont elles articulent les rapports de force entre acteurs.En effet, les nouvelles politiques d’aménagement favorables à la biodiversité heurtent les représentations socialement construites pendant ces dernières décennies qui considèrent certains espaces (la ville) comme totalement dédiés aux humains, ce qui conduit souvent à des conflits. Nous plaidons ici pour l’analyse critique des processus sociétaux menant à ces conceptions conflictuelles de la nature à travers la prise en considération des dynamiques interactives entre les acteurs humains et non-humains du système. Ces recherches pourraient participer à la résolution de conflits socio-écologiques potentiels.

This paper addresses the evolution of nature conceptions in the last two decades as a response to the global ecological crisis and the parallel redefinition of landscape and society-environment relations it implies. Contemporary scholars now increasingly emphasize that natural conditions are not separate from social processes. Thinking nature and human-environment interdependencies in these novel terms involved in return a fundamental reconsideration and reorganization of the physical and imagined landscapes, as well as a redefinition of the relations between nature and its human and non-human components. We then further proceed to explain current conservation disputes based on these conceptual refashioning and illustrate how social conflicts develop out of the diversity of nowadays co-existing nature understandings. Former perspectives may collide with institutional efforts of urban nature restoration which results in increased human-biodiversity encounters. Similarly, in the context of environmental conservation there can be fierce local resistance to the implementation of environmental policies as coexisting discourses about nature may give conflicting protection prescriptions for different kinds of biodiversity. In conclusion we discuss how conservation and governance models could be better informed by the clarification of nature representations and values. We further argue for the critical analysis of the societal processes shaping conflicting nature conceptions, by considering the interactive dynamics between all human and non-human stakeholders of the system, as research priorities to resolve potential social-ecological conflicts.