Browsing by Author "Bertrand, Alain"

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Creation of New Commons as Local Rural Development Tools: Rural Markets of Wood Energy in Niger
(1995) Mahamane, El Hadj Laouali; Montagne, Pierre; Bertrand, Alain
"Since 1989, the Energie II Project fosters long term sustainibility of tree stock for wood energy in Niger. It is thus based on reappropriation of forest stand by village residents. The regulation reform has switched renewable resource management from State to rural population. This transfer is direct, immediate, and a source of great local autonomy. Creating an institution called 'rural market of wood energy' allows autonomous management of resources extraction, trading and recovery. The whole network has now a new structure based on susidiarity. Decisions are taken at the most efficient level (local, regional or national) according to the common goal. Due to the absence of cash crops, Nigerian forest favours a potential accruing leading to local rural development. Thus, the use of the income drawn fro wood energy by existing 'rural markets'. Rather than providing 'readymade' responses to questions, the project supports the emerging 'possible' ones and self organization without imposing development models. The novelty of this process is also the technical simplification of the organizational solutions leading to its implementation."
Creation of New Commons as Local Rural Development Tools: Rural Markets of Wood Energy in Niger
(1995) Mahamane, El Hadj Laouali; Montagne, Pierre; Bertrand, Alain; Babin, Didier
"Since 1989, the Energie II Project fosters long term sustainability of tree stock for wood energy in Niger. It is thus based on reappropriation of forest stand by village residents. The regulation reform has switched renewable resource management from State to rural population. This transfer is direct, immediate, and a source of great local autonomy. Creating an institution called 'rural market of wood energy' allows autonomous management of resources extraction, trading and recovery. The whole network has now a new structure based on susidiarity. Decisions are taken at the most efficient level (local, regional or national) according to the common goal. Due to the absence of cash crops, Nigerian forest favours a potential accruing leading to local rural development. Thus, the use of the income drawn fro wood energy by existing 'rural markets'. Rather than providing 'readymade' responses to questions, the project supports the emerging 'possible' ones and self organization without imposing development models. The novelty of this process is also the technical simplification of the organizational solutions leading to its implementation."
From State to Local Commons in Madagascar: A National Policy for Local Management of Renewable Resources
(1995) Bertrand, Alain; Weber, Jacques
"Madagascar is preparing a national policy for local management of renewable resources owned by the State, classified forests, lakes, rivers, coastal resources We present the genesis and the main features of the on-going reform. 11800 local communities, the Fokonolona, will receive exclusive rights, to control the access, manage and valorise the resources in their area, through formal contracts defining mutual rights and obligations of communities and administration. Initially discussed about the human occupations of protected areas, the local management scheme is to be generalized to the whole country. The reform will result in creating a great number of new commons in the Great Island."
La Securisation Fonciere: Condition de la Gestion Viable des Ressources Naturelles Renouvelables?
(1993) Bertrand, Alain
"La communication vise a exposer les limites du besoin de securisation fonciere trop souvent presente comme un prealable au developpement economique et social en milieu rural. La securisation fonciere doit etre appreciee de facon relative et la vieille logique 'proprietariste' qui depuis la periode coloniale assimile securite fonciere et propriete privee n'a conduit bien souvent qu'a exacerber les problemes fonciers et a generer des dynamiques de degradation irreversible des ressources naturelles. Le manicheisme simpliste de nombreuses reglementations fonciere 'proprietaristes' est souvent le principal facteur d'insecurite fonciere."
Managing Pluralism: Subsidiarity and Patrimonial Mediation
(1998) Babin, Didier; Bertrand, Alain
"In the precolonial period. pastoralists usually had customary control of forest areas and resources in Sahelian Africa. As colonies were established, traditional usage was swept aside and colonial forest law was modelled on the forest laws of the colonizers' own countries. The assumption of state ownership of 'vacant and ownerless land' amounted to a form of expropriation. with responsibility for management of the rural population's land and its resources being taken out of its hands. The state then set up a forestry service entrusted with forest surveillance and management. Official attitudes are still heavily influenced by this approach, and each forester sees his or her task as that of ensuring steady timber yields, while protecting forests from outside aggression. This has led to the development and adoption of a model of forest management that recognizes only one actor in forest management (the state), and concentrates on managing the timber resource, despite the fact that grazing, game, gathered grass, etc., are often explicitly listed as forest products in forestry laws in Sahelian countries."
Niger & Mali: Public Policies, Fiscal and Economic Forest Governance Policies and Local Forest Management Sustainability
(2006) Bertrand, Alain; Gautier, Denis; Konandji, Hamadi; Mamane, Mamadou; Montagne, Pierre; Gazull, Laurent
"The forest policies adopted in Niger (1992) and Mali (1996) share the same denomination (Household Energy Strategy) and have enabled a transfer of forest management responsibilities to rural communities through the establishment of (i) fuelwood rural markets and (ii) the demarcation and the setting up of management plans of the village forests. "The outcomes are significant. Each national policy has been shaped under different institutional conditions and political wills. Opposition by lobbies gave different results in Niger and Mali. In Niger local wood fuel traders were unable to influence new forest policy propositions prepared by Domestic Energy Project (respectively Netherlands and Danemark managed by World Bank). In Mali, the jointed two lobbies of forest administrative workers and wood fuel traders achieved in dislocating new forest law projects. The legal documents differ regarding forest taxation (commercial transport in Niger, forest harvesting in Mali) and control of the forest service. "These policies lead to different results regarding the effects of the forest policy instruments and the sustainability of the management implemented locally. "This study will show to what extent the design and implementation modalities of a public policy might influence the management practices of local actors and thus have an impact on resource use sustainability. "
Social Science and Conservation in Madagascar
(2010) Kull, Christian A.; Bertrand, Alain; Horning, Nadia Rabesahala; Evers, Sandra J. T. M.; Tucker, Bram; Sodikoff, Genese M.; Kaufmann, Jeffrey C.
"Social science research in Madagascar is like that anywhere on this planet. It involves scholars asking questions about society in all its complexity, and through some structured mode of rational enquiry (be it theoretical, quantitative, experiential, descriptive, or other). Scholars from within and outside Madagascar have over the past century contributed to a solid body of research investigating Malagasy society, including its interactions with the plants, animals, soils, and waters around it. Since the late 1980s, the environment, and in particular nature conservation, have been an important (at times even dominant) focus for foreign - funded projects and institutions. Unsurprisingly, as a result, a sizeable portion of recent social science research has focused on protected areas, forests, and their peripheries."