Implementing the International biodiversity discourse North and South: Enlisting small farmers into biodiversity conservation in France and Brazil
Monica Castro-Larrañaga , Bernard Hubert
As International biodiversity discourse spreads, the old categories of First and Third world are blurring. Using political ecology, we compare the translation effect of international biodiversity discourse at the local level in France and Brazil, two countries representing the opposing views of First and Third World. First we address the question of why and how biodiversity discourse has been institutionalized and implemented differently at the domestic level in Brazil and France. We historically follow the implementation of the PNR of Luberon (South France), and the TR Portal d'Amazônia (Northern Mato-Grosso), by inventorying socio-ecological zoning, agricultural practices, access rights and use of natural resources (particularly land), institutional and individual actors and knowledge used to build national and local policies applied. Institutional and socio-economical conditions are fairly opposite between Brazil and France. In France promoters of biodiversity are mainly territorial authorities and in Brazil are local NGOs. Nevertheless, strategies used by stakeholders to fulfill their socio-economical demands and some outputs of implementing the biodiversity discourse are very similar: to document and map natural resources to develop zoning; to institutionalize zoning ; to develop economic incentives and to establish mechanisms of product labeling. In both countries biodiversity discourse is used to: capture financial support for projects aiming to develop alternative agricultures; empower small farmers to resist against market pressure; creates exclusion of those who cannot mobilize scientific argument effectively; institutionalize ecological zoning as a mean of controlling use and access to land. With the globalization of environmental issues and the rise of international engagements on biodiversity conservation, small farming has gained visibility as an environmentally-friendly practice. This new alliance between small farming and biodiversity conservation might, under certain circumstances, benefit both the environment and the rural poor. Biodiversity conservation discourse has come to point out the cleavage between industrial agriculture and small farming, that between North and South.