Rural agricultural mosaic landscapes that host a high number of wild animal and plant species and various human activities at the same time are thought to be good examples of what conserved areas could be in metropolitan France.
Photo by Anna Stier.

By Anna Stier, Erwan Cherel, Joachim Claudet, Laure Debeir.

Read the full paper here

When it comes to nature conservation, one of the main tools countries and international organizations use is to create protected areas such as national parks, nature reserves or other similar regulations that apply to a geographic area, to protect and preserve the diversity of wild species and ecosystems from extinction. Fifteen years ago, the conservation community faced the fact that, for several reasons, protected areas were not sufficient, and introduced a new tool called “conserved areas.” The aim of conserved areas is to recognize areas where nature preservation is already happening even outside the areas that governments have officially designated for protection. Since, several countries have struggled to define how to implement this concept and how to recognize conserved-area sites, some implementations showed satisfying and others deceiving results.

In this study, we explore how international and national experts of nature conservation as well as people who live, manage, or hold rights on areas that could be conserved areas in the future perceive the possible introduction of this new tool to France. We looked at scientific and technical documents, at events and meetings, and conducted several interviews, observations, case studies and dedicated workshops, to identify what stakeholders perceive as possible benefits, challenges and risks for people and nature, as well as things that seemed obligatory to be put in place for the process to succeed.

We found that risks and benefits go back to the decision to provide the necessary means to adapt the concept to French contexts in a participatory, inclusive and scientific way. Stakeholders found themselves in a dilemma of how to create recognition procedures that would make sense for science and nature conservation and at the same time encourage and support local and non-scientific stakeholders.

Our findings suggest that, for France or any other country, the implementation of conserved areas should address this by listing all stakeholders concerned or impacted by the subject at various levels and assure their plain inclusion in the discussion about future methods and administrative procedures, to ensure both effective conservation and consideration of local realities.