REMIFO - What place do the actors of forest territories give to plants in their representations and collective practices?

Objectives

French forests suffer the combined effects of climatic, health and human disturbances, while at the same time being identified as one of the solutions to the ecological transition. As a result, controversy over the future of forests and associated ecosystem services intensifies. These debates could reflect, on the ground, more profound changes in the interactions between humans and these environments and be embodied in new modes of governance. Drawing on the theories of care, the ontological turn and ethnobotany, our research involves investigating the collective transformations underway in the Livradois-Forez Regional Nature Park

Objectives

Through a survey of collective transformations underway in the Livradois-Forez Regional Nature Park, our aim is to track changes in people's relationships with forests and, more broadly, with plants, in order to report on the transformations experienced by local actors, which could lead to the emergence of new modes of governance in forest areas. More specifically, the study will focus on :

• Changes experienced by local players (including forest managers), i.e. the way in which individuals and groups experience the ecological and forestry crisis in their area. This involves questioning the players about the changes they are observing, the knowledge they are producing, and the practices they are adjusting and developing;
• Changing relationships with forests: in a context where the management choices made in French forests are now being questioned by various members of civil society, our aim is to extend the debate on interactions between speciesandand to include interactions between humans and non-human living beings.
• The link between different types of knowledge: we want to identify and connect scientific and local knowledge, in order to gain a better understanding of (1) how, and through what knowledge, stakeholders perceive changes in the forest, and (2) the extent to which they draw on and articulate this knowledge to develop individual and collective practices ; 
• The potential emergence of new modes of governance in forest territories: How can the great uncertainties surrounding climate change prompt groups of stakeholders to commit and take action in order to protect ecosystems that are increasingly seen as 'new commons'? How the emergence of new stakeholders and new ways of thinking about forest ecosystems may have implications in terms of governance, by highlighting sometimes contradictory or conflicting interactions between various groups of stakeholders ?