Maurice Godelier, Suivre Jésus et faire du business. Une petite société tribale dans la mondialisation

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Making Up for Lost Nature? A Critical Review of the International Development of Voluntary Biodiversity Offsets

International audienceThis article analyzes the international development of voluntary biodiversity of sets, a conservation instrument that permits developers to pursue their activities if conservation actions are undertaken elsewhere to compensate for the environmental impacts of their projects. Largely undertaken by extractive industries that operate in the global South where no of setting regulations exist, this tool is currently attracting growing interest from policy makers, private companies, i nancial institutions, and conservation experts. Building upon the concept of market framing developed by Callon (1998), I explore in what contexts and through what processes this idea has gathered momentum, as well as the disturbing gap between the way it has been framed and its practical implementation. It is suggested that once immersed in the outside world, the market framing of of sets appears as a fragile result dependent upon substantial investments, which casts serious doubts about of sets' ability to reduce biodiversity loss on technical, governance, and social grounds

Carbon Forests at the Margins of the State: The Politics of Indigenous Sovereignty and Market Environmentalism in the North-eastern Hills of India

International audienceIn the north-eastern hills of Meghalaya, the Khasi Hills project, self-advertised as ‘one of the first Redd+ initiatives in Asia to be developed and managed by indigenous governments on communal lands’, is often presented as one of the rare success stories of India’s recent experimentation with market instruments as part of its forest governance. This article uses this example to extend existing discussions on the neoliberalization of forest governance, and its intersections with the cultural politics of resource control. Unlike mainstream forestry projects criticized for being too concentrated in the hands of the Forest Department, this project explicitly taps into the particularities of a region located on the margin of the Indian nation-state, where, crucially, ownership and control of the land lie formally with the people rather than with the state. The article explores the politics of this curious marriage of (formal) indigenous sovereignty with market environmentalism, showing, first, the centrality of these assumed cultural and ecological specificities within the regime of justification of such market project; second, how the aspirations of project proponents for community engagement unravelled in practice; and, third, the limits of their endeavours due to larger structural social inequalities and the requirements of such market projects. I conclude with the idea that far from being anecdotal, this case brings interesting perspectives in the context of the struggle for the recognition of forest rights in the rest of India

Conserver la nature par l'exclusion des humains? La lutte pour l’accès et l’usage des ressources dans la réserve de biosphère de Nanda Devi, Uttarakhand (Inde).

In India as in the rest of the world, the idea that nature conservation is undergoing a drastic "crisis" is gaining ground, as is supposedly testified by recurrent conflicts between local populations and park authorities. Set against this background, this study takes the case of the Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve (NDBR), nestling in the Himalayan region of Uttarakhand and inhabited by adivasis known as "Bhotia". Birthplace of the Chipko movement in Reni (1974), this social and ecological milieu is today the reflection of this national scenario, at the heart of a conflict between Bhotia villagers, park authorities, small local NGOs and international institutions. Through an analysis of the social construction of the conflict in the NDBR, this work seeks to break out og the managerial straitjacket that is often imposed on this "problem" and to develop a critique that stresses the political and historically ituated dimensions of conservation policies. In the first place, we analyse the concrete expressions of the conservation "crisis" in India and the concomitant discourses, we then turn towards the sanctuarization processes of the Nanda Devi region and, finally, to the way in which the various interests in the NDBR are expressed and handled and to the question of the agency of subaltern groups. Such an approach aims to complement studies in the political ecology of conservation, by showing that what must be conserved, by whom and how, is determined in the final analysis by social, political and economic processes.En Inde comme dans le reste du monde s'impose l'idée selon laquelle la conservation de la nature traverserait une "crise" sans précédent, manifeste par les conflits récurrents entre les populations locales et les gestionnaires des parcs. C'est dans ce contexte que s'inscrit cette thèse, qui s'intéresse à la réserve de biosphère de Nanda devi (RBND), nichée dans la région himalayenne de l'Uttarakhand et omù réside une population adivasi dite "bhotia". Berceau du mouvement Chipko à Reni (1974), ce milieu social et écologique est aujourd'hui le reflet du scénario national, au centre d'un conflit qui met en jeu les villageois Bhotia, les gestionnaires du parc, mais aussi des petites ONG locales et des organisations internationales. A travers une analyse de la construction sociale du conflit dans la RBND, ce travail cherche à sortir du carcan gestionnaire dans lequel ce "problème" est spuvent posé pour développer une approche critique des politiques de conservation soulignant leur dimension politique et historiquement située. Il analyse en premier lieu les manifestations concrètes de cette "crise" de la conservation en Inde et les discours qui la portent, pour se tourner ensuite vers les processus de sanctuarisation de la région de Nanda Devi et finalemen,t s'interroger sur le "ménagement" des différents intérêts en présence de la RBND et sur la question de l'agency des subalternes. Une telle démarche vise à compléter les travaux en political ecology sur la conservation, en montrant que ce qui doit être conservé, par qui, et comment, est déterminé en dernière instance par des processus sociaux, politiques et économiques

Parcs et populations en Inde : les dessous d’une coexistence explosive

International audienc

Parcs et populations en Inde : les dessous d’une coexistence explosive

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