Characterize and support Sustainable Adaptations in TerrItorial Forestry systems

PI : Jonathan Lenglet, Mériem Fournier (UMR 1434 SILVA)

Collaborations : Laurent Simon (UMR Ladyss, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, Paris), Olivier Crevoisier (Institut de sociologie, Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Suisse), Sylvain Caurla, Thomas Beaussier (UMR LEF, Nancy), Eléonor Loiseau (UMR ITAP, IRSTEA, Montpellier), Claude Michel (Parc Naturel Régional des Ballons des Vosges)

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Context — The forestry sector, as well as most western European rural areas, is currently undergoing significant transformations due to a combination of political, environmental, economic and societal upheavals. Facing these original circumstances, the various actors and stakeholders organize themselves to tackle new challenges. Those adaptations should take into account the imperative of sustainability and be in conjunction with the demand for re-localization of development tools (circular economy and endogenous development renewal).

Objectives — The SATIsFor project is designed using disciplines of social geography, economics and engineering sciences (Life Cycle Analysis, Forest sciences), and aims at understanding how the forestry sector copes with its functional restructuring, assessing the sustainability of different development pathways.

Approaches — We choose to focus on the territorial level, considered as the most relevant scale to study actors’ interrelations and sense of space. We develop an interdisciplinary framework based on the recent advances in territorial ecology and economy to analyze the reorganization of economic, social and institutional practices. During the first part of the project we will conduct an extensive series of interviews with the forestry sector professionals and territorial projects leaders. This work will take place in both north-eastern France and western Switzerland and will provide the research group with qualitative data. In a second phase, we use these data to develop scenarios and we assess their sustainability using a consequential economic-life cycle assessment (LCA) model.

Expected results and impacts — In view of these expected elements and results, we will be able to build a joint approach in territorial ecology towards an integrative understanding of the forestry sector functioning on a meso-scale.