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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2019

After the catastrophe. Turning off or speeding up? French forest owners coping with climatic extreme events

Après la catastrophe. Ralentir ou accélérer ? Comment les propriétaires forestiers français font-ils face au changement climatique

Résumé

Although climatic catastrophes are scrutinized for a long time, their impacts on change of practices by forest owners remain ambiguous. For some researchers, extreme events act as a window of opportunity which induces major changes. On the opposite others observe, after the initial trauma, a return to routines. Our contribution aims to question if socio-ecological memory of past extreme weather events guides future conducts and induce changes in forest management. Based on two catastrophes (a severe drought in 2003 and a windstorm in 2009 in France), we assume extreme events do not entail disruption, nor status quo but a so-called 'assisted deviation'. Our analysis shows that strategies range from a return to routine to an acceleration of changes in forest practices. On one hand the lack of social memory affects the capacity to learn from experience and contributes to modest changes of practices also induced by a loss of economic flexibility. On the other hand, major changes of practices are often encouraged by economic and cognitive capability to implement new forest practices but also by a vivid memory of past catastrophes and lessons learnt from their recurrence. However, the ecosystem memory and the forest sector economic legacy and structure may lead to two very different adaptive strategies: the intensification of past practices based on resistance of ecosystem or the introduction of innovative practices based on resilience. Finally, we suggest catastrophes should are not only risks for the future but also experience which test the relevance and efficiency of adaptive strategies.
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Dates et versions

hal-02610136 , version 1 (16-05-2020)

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Philippe Deuffic, Vincent Banos. After the catastrophe. Turning off or speeding up? French forest owners coping with climatic extreme events. XXV IUFRO World Congress, Sep 2019, Curitiba, Brazil. pp.4. ⟨hal-02610136⟩
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