ES/UMR GEAU

The (re)construction of ecological continuity is stated as one of the main objectives of the European Water Framework Directive for the watershed management in Europe. Analysing the social, political, technical and scientific processes characterising the implementation of different projects of ecological continuity in two adjacent peri-urban territories in Ile-de-France, we observed science-driven approaches, disregarding the social contexts. We show that, in urbanized areas, ecological continuity requires not only important technical and ecological expertise but also social and political participation to the definition of a common vision and action plan. Being a challenge for both, technical water management institutions and “classical” ecological policies, we propose some social science contributions to deal with ecological unpredictability and reconsider stakeholder resistance to this kind of projects.

The establishment of protected areas in wetlands all over the world is often accompanied by coercive measures for local fisheries, mainly inspired by the model of fishing quotas. Unsuited to the specific small scale fisheries, quota policies consider the degradation of fisheries primarily as a result of overfishing, a failure of the institutional systems that do not succeed to regulate access to the resource. Based on an ethnographic study of fishing rights evolution in the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, this article presents the degradation of fish resources as a form of “moral economy”, defining new forms of interaction between actors, resources and environments in order to address environmental uncertainties. We show how the “degradation” of the fishery is the expression of a moral economy, both in the formulation of fishing rights policy and at the level of local practices.

Monitoring of cyanobacteria in freshwater ecosystems is a complex task, which is time consuming and expensive due to the chaotic population dynamics and highly heterogeneous distribution of cyanobacteria populations in water bodies. The financial cost constitutes a
strong limitation for the implementation of long-term monitoring programs in developing countries, particularly in Africa. The work presented here was performed in the framework of an international project addressing the sustainable monitoring and management of surface water resources used for the production of drinking water in three African countries. We tested the potential of a citizen approach for monitoring cyanobacterial blooms, which are a growing threat to the drinking water supply. This pilot study was designed, implemented and
evaluated in close interaction with the Pasteur Institute of the Ivory Coast and with the populations of three villages located on the shoreline of a freshwater lagoon located near Abidjan city. Based on the use of a smartphone application, the citizens of the three villages were
invited to report water color changes, as these changes could reflect cyanobacteria proliferations.
A two-year experimentation period has shown that it is possible to mobilize the local populations to monitor cyanobacterial blooms. The data collected by citizens were consistent with the data obtained by a classical monitoring of cyanobacteria performed over seven
months, but it appeared that new approaches were needed to validate the citizen data. This participatory approach also provided great improvements to the understanding and awareness of local populations regarding water quality and cyanobacterial bloom issues. Finally, we discuss some of the difficulties and limitations of our participatory monitoring approach that should be considered by further implementations. Despite these difficulties, our work suggests that citizen monitoring is a promising approach that may complement the classical approach to sustainable monitoring of cyanobacteria in developing countries.

Le présent article dresse un  état des lieux des sciences participatives dans le domaine de l’eau en interrogeant la manière dont ces nouvelles pratiques de production de savoirs participent du renouvellement de l’expertise et des savoirs considérés comme légitimes dans le domaine de l’eau et des milieux aquatiques.
Les auteurs s’appuient sur différents corpus empiriques : une analyse de la littérature grise française faisant l’état des sciences participatives, une analyse bibliométrique de la littérature scientifique  à l’échelle mondiale et enfin, différentes expériences de recherche participative dans des contextes d’expertise sur les milieux aquatiques trés contrastés : la France et la Côte d’Ivoire.
Cette diversité  de matériaux nous permet de discuter plus généralement de la contribution des sciences participatives  à la reformulation des fondements épistémologiques de la relation entre science, savoirs experts et acteurs de la société. Nous interrogeons la contribution des différentes formes de sciences participatives que nous avons recensées et analysées à  la redéfinition du couple scientifique-citoyen, tant dans le domaine de la production des connaissances et des expertises que dans celui de la gouvernance des milieux aquatiques.

Social conflicts related to biodiversity conservation and adaptation policy to climate change in coastal areas illustrate the need to reinforce understanding of the “matters of concern” as well as the “matters of fact”. In this paper, we argue that we must rethink adaptation from a new perspective, considering that humans together function as both ecological actors and social actors. Using international examples from the UNESCO world biosphere reserve network, we show that an ontological perspective may provide a simple and compact way to think about coupled infrastructure systems and systematic formalism, allowing for understanding of the relational matrix between actors, institutions and ecosystems. We contend that our formalism responds to three challenges. First, it encompasses the different regional contexts and policies that rely on the same ontology. Second, it provides a method to relate any local adaptation plan to the conservation paradigms that originate from the ecologic...

Romain Bertrand, Le Detail du monde : l’art perdu de la description de la nature Romain Bertrand, connu pour ses histoires connectees de l’Asie du Sud-Est, se livre ici a une « reverie » depuis les cotes de Borneo, ou il a recemment consulte des archives. Au seuil d’un nouvel ouvrage d’histoire du monde malais, il evoque les figures qui l’ont precede dans la contemplation d’« un univers a l’agonie, un monde a claire-voie, dont les surfaces s’etiolent, de toutes parts livrees aux outrages de ...