Browsing by Author "Michon, Genevieve"

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Domestic Forests: A New Paradigm for Integrating Local Communities Forestry into Tropical Forest Science
(2007) Michon, Genevieve; De Foresta, Hubert; Levang, Patrice; Verdeaux, Francois
"Despite a long history of confrontation between forest agencies and forest people, indigenous or local practices are increasingly considered as a viable alternative of forest management. This paper is a synthesis derived from various long-term research programs carried out by the authors in Southeast Asia and Africa on forests managed by farmers. These researches looked at local practices and underlying science, including their social, political, and symbolic dimensions. They also addressed evolutionary trends and driving forces, as well as potential and limits for forest conservation and development, mitigation of deforestation, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation in a context of global environmental, political, and social change. We discuss how forest management by local communities, contrary to the unified models of professional forest management, exhibits a high historical and geographical diversity. The analysis we draw from the various examples we studied reveals several invariants, which allows proposing the unifying paradigm of domestic forest. The first universal feature concerns the local managers themselves, who are, in their vast majority, farmers. Management practices range from local interventions in the forest ecosystem, to more intensive types of forest culture, and ultimately to permanent forest plantation. But in all cases, forest management is closely integrated with agriculture. The second universal feature concerns the conceptual continuity of planted forests with the natural forest, in matters of vegetations structure and composition as well as economic traits and ecosystem services. The resulting forest is uneven-aged, composed of several strata, harboring a large diversity of species, and producing a wide range of products, with timber seldom being the dominant one. The term domestic forest aims at highlighting the close relationship the domestication process establishes between a specific human group, including its elementary units, the domestic units, and the forest, transformed and managed to fulfill the needs of that group. The domestic forest paradigm calls for the integration into forest science of a new concept of land management in which production and conservation are compatible, and in which there is no choice to be made between people and nature. It does not aim at contesting the value of conventional forest science, but it proposes domestic forests as a new scientific domain, for the combined benefit of forest science and of forest people. It does not contest the value of conventional forest management models, but pushes towards more equitable relations between forest agencies and farmers managing forest resources on their own lands."
Forests as Patrimonies? From Theory to Tangible Processes at Various Scales
(2012) Michon, Genevieve; Romagny, Bruno; Auclair, Laurent; Deconchat, Marc
"Among theoretical fields addressing the conceptualization of interrelationships between nature and society, patrimonial approaches remain relatively unexplored. Stressing the multiplication of local dynamics where elements of nature are redefined as 'patrimonies' (ranging from local patrimonies to world heritage) by various social groups, this conceptual field tries to qualify these dynamics and their determiners to understand how they allow us to better address contemporary environmental challenges. Through a multidisciplinary approach in social sciences, centered on rural forests, we analyze the multiplication of patrimonial processes in forest development at various scales. First, we elaborate on the concept of patrimony and on patrimonial processes and present the current construction and dynamics of forest patrimonies. A crucial question concerns the links that form between the many spatial–temporal levels where these processes develop. Moreover, these patrimonial processes can be quite divergent, not only across scales from local to global, but also between 'endogenous' (or bottom-up) and 'exogenous' (or top-down) processes. We present two detailed examples in Morocco and Sumatra, where patrimonial constructions are developing simultaneously at various scales and through various actors who treat the forest in very different ways. Drawing from these examples, we discuss how and why the simultaneous development of different, often overlapping, patrimonial constructions along these scales allows collaboration or, conversely, can lead their holders into conflict. Lastly, we discuss the contribution of patrimonial concepts to resilience thinking and social–ecological systems theory."
Multistoried Agroforestry Garden System in West Sumatra, Indonesia
(1986) Michon, Genevieve; Mary, F.; Bompard, J.
"The agroforestry garden system in Maninjau in West Sumatra is characterized by an intensive integration of forest species and commercial crops, forming a forest-like system. The intimate association of different species provides both subsistence and commercial products which supplement rice production. This complex agroforest is managed by the combination between cultural practices and respect of natural processes of vegetation production and reproduction. It represents a profitable production system and constitutes an efficient buffer between villages and protected forest. It is a good model of association between integration of forest resources and cultivation of cash crops in the form of a sustainable and flexible system."
New Face for Traditional Commons: Forest Conversion and the Redefinition of Common Property and Individual Rights through Agroforest Development in Sumatra, Indonesia
(1995) Michon, Genevieve; De Foresta, Hubert; Levang, Patrice
"In Indonesia, conflicts between the State and local communities concerning utilization and control of forest resources are increasing. As a result of existing legislation, market regulations and financial policies, dispossession of local communities and deregulation of traditional common property systems are becoming common cases all over the archipelago. But, parallel to the present dilapidation of misappropriated common property resources in natural forests, there is, sometimes for more than a century, a movement towards restitution of these resources in farming systems. In many areas, forest resources have been appropriated by local communities through special management systems which transfer them to agricultural lands and into agricultural systems but do not look like agricultural management. As pure forest reconstruction enterprises, these remarkable 'agroforest' systems associate the ancient forest management systems with a logic of commercial agriculture. They overall allow farmers to escape the contradiction existing between a national institutional framework which sharply limits access to natural forests and an economic reality which pushes towards intensive utilization of their resources. Through the history of an agroforest in Sumatra, through the analysis of interrelations between natural and social processes which shaped and sustain it, we shall discuss how this 'agroforest' concept can contribute to debates on use and dynamics of common property resources in forest areas, emphasizing biological and human aspects which allowed more than the conservation of one or another forest resource, the restoration of the forest resource itself in all its biological and economic diversity, we shall discuss the validity of this 'agroforest strategy' for re-appropriation of the ancient forest commons in a context particularly unfavorable to their maintenance in present resource management systems. "Accent will be put on the special socio-cultural aspects -perception of forest resources, representation of the agroforest vs. representation of the forest- and local institutional characteristics - modes of access, control and transfer for different types of agroforest resources - which make the originality of the agroforest management mode. Discussion will follow on the perspectives offered by the agroforest model for future negotiations between national government and local communities on the use of forest lands and resources."
Public Policies and Management of Rural Forests: Lasting Alliance or Fool's Dialogue?
(2013) Michon, Genevieve; Nasi, Robert; Balent, Gérard
"Most people in forest and rural areas manage trees as part of their livelihood systems. The resulting 'domestic' or 'rural' forests are distinct from conventional forest. They have historically been overlooked by the forestry sector and impacted by forest policies and regulatory frameworks. These forests presently encounter requalification and valuation dynamics, fueled by a sustainable development ideology, and induced by both public powers and local communities. These dynamics move in two different directions: the naturalization of rural forests by policy makers, and their politization by rural people. We draw on long-term research experiences in France, Morocco, Southeast Asia, and Africa on forests managed by 'farmers', among which some are analyzed in the Ecology and Society Feature, Public policies and management of rural forests: lasting alliance or fool’s dialogue?. We first elaborate on domestication, analyzed at tree, ecosystems and landscape levels, as a concept allowing for a better understanding of the specific relationships developed between rural people and forests. We then engage in a critical review of how forest-related and sustainable development policies consider rural forests, and discuss how they address (or do not address) their specificity and encourage (or do not encourage) their development."
Revisiting the Resilience of Chestnut Forests in Corsica: From Social-Ecological Systems Theory to Political Ecology
(2011) Michon, Genevieve
"The 'chestnut civilization' is often used to qualify agrarian inland Corsica. Based on a critical review of historical sources and research on present dynamics, we show how this 'civilization' has built up on a long series of resistance and adaptation to external political forces, from Genovese and French domination up to the present period of independence claims. The construction of the castagnetu, the Corsican chestnut (Castanea sativa mill.) forest, as a social-ecological system is based on a constantly evolving compromise between wild and domestic attributes, but also on socio-political resistance, incorporation, and innovation. We argue that the castagnetu’s resilience, beyond its social-ecological qualities and its economic profitability, is closely linked to a constant incorporation of identity and cultural values into chestnut trees and gardens, but also to the role assigned to the castagnetu by its supporters in the political positioning of their relations to both central power and outside actors."