Presentation

While in countries of the South, and particularly in Africa, nature protection essentially consisted, throughout the 20th century, in the protection of wild plant and animal species within protected areas, the rise of the idea of biodiversity and its implementation into policy at the international, national and local levels implies positioning it as a cross-cutting issue in public policies. Thus, far from being limited to regulating protected areas, biodiversity policies concern a multitude of issues and dimensions, ranging from water, air, and soil to forests, agriculture, and climate. Thus, the economic take-off of many of these countries, the global plunder of resources, demographic pressure, galloping urbanization and climate change are all factors in the erosion of biodiversity in the South, but they have also led to the development of innovative policies to counteract them.

Bibliography

• Rodary E., Castellanet C., Rossi G. (Eds.), Conservation de la Nature et Développement. L’intégration impossible ?, Paris, Gret et Karthala, 2003.
• Thomas F., Boisvert V., Le pouvoir de la biodiversité. Néolibéralisation de la nature dans les pays émergents, Marseille, IRD Éditions, 2015.
• Rist G., Le développement, Paris, Presses de Sciences Po, 2015.

Educational formula

This class is partly based on lectures, each of which has required readings. Each lecture aims to provide an overview of a particular theme. It is on this basis that students work for the following session, during which they will make an oral presentation on a specific issue. Active student participation is expected. This participation is both individual and collective: individual (participation in the general discussion around a text read beforehand; critical discussion about the presentation made by peers); collective (oral and written presentation of a case study around the theme of the day).