Coviability of Social and Ecological Systems: Reconnecting Mankind to the Biosphere in an Era of Global Change

This second volume is the work of more than 55 authors from 15 different disciplines and includes complex systems science which studies the viability of components, and also the study of empirical situations. As readers will discover, the coviability of social and ecological systems is based on the contradiction between humanity, which adopts finalized objectives, and the biosphere, which refers to a ecological functions. We see how concrete situations shed light on the coviability's determinants, and in this book the very nature of the coviability, presented as a concept-paradigm, is defined in a transversal and ontological ways.

By adopting a systemic approach, without advocating any economic dogma (such as development) or dichotomizing between humans and nature, while emphasizing what is relevant to humans and what is not, this work neutrally contextualizes man's place in the biosphere. It offers a new mode of thinking and positioning of the ecological imperative, and will appeal to all those working with social and ecological systems.

Puts forward a new concept to analyse the man-nature relationship Offers governance solutions to face the ecological emergency Provides a unique view on environmental change using inter- and transdisciplinary approaches

Auteur

Olivier Barrière, Ph.D

Dr. Olivier Barrière is an environmental jurist and a researcher at the IRD (french Research Institute for Sustainable Development), which develops a legal socio-ecological approach through the anthropology of law. He got an HDR (accreditation to supervise research) on May 2012, on this topic: Elements of a legal socio-ecology: the right facing the ecological emergency . For 20 years his work has focused on the relationship which bond human beings to their environment, within the limits of a legal regulation which is faced with progressing global and environmental changes. O. Barrière works thus on local law concerned with the viability of systems by promoting innovative concepts within the limits of property-Environment, of the co-viability of the social and ecological systems, and of the negotiated law which creates a relation between international law and the local realities along with endogenous representations. His working areas are: Africa (Morroco, Senegal, Mali, Tchad, Rwanda), French Guyana, Nouvelle Calédonie and France (Causses-Cévennes). For several years O. Barrière formalizes a network of researchers and experts in the field of coviability by bringing together a variety of disciplines through meetings and seminars. Within its Research Institution (IRD) he leads an interdisciplinary transverse axis on the coviability in a transdisciplinary aims. Olivier Barrière, as project manager, implement experiments in close cooperation with stakeholders, local elected and national technical institutions to achieve concrete practical results as local law, as environmental convention, socio-ecological resilience pact, pastoral pact. He also teaches environmental law to future managers of natural lands at the University of Sciences of Montpellier.

Mohamed Behnassi, Ph.D

Mohamed Behnassi is specialist in Environment and Human Security Law and Politics. After the obtention of his Ph.D in 2003 from the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences, Hassan II University of Casablanca for a Thesis titled: Multilateral Environmental Negotiations: Towards a Global Governance for Environment, he accessed to the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences, Ibn Zohr University of Agadir, Morocco as Assistant Professor (2014). In 2011, he obtained the status of Associate Professor and in 2017 the status of full professor. He served as the Head of Public Law Department (2014-2015) and the Director of the Research Laboratory for Territorial Governance, Human Security and Sustainability (LAGOS) (2015-at present). In addition, Dr. Behnassi is the Founder and Director of the Center for Environment, Human Security and Governance (CERES) (former North-South Center for Social Sciences (NRCS), 2008-2015). Dr. Behnassi is also Associate Researcher at the UMR ESPACE-DEV, Research Institute for Development (IRD), France. In 2011, he completed a U.S. State Department-sponsored Civic Education and Leadership Fellowship (CELF) at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, USA and in 2014 he obtained a Diploma in Diplomacy and International Environmental Law from the University of Eastern Finland and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Finland. Dr. Behnassi has pursued several post-doctoral trainings since the completion of his PhD.

His core teaching and expertise areas cover: environmental change, human security, sustainability, climate change politics and governance, human rights, CSR, etc. He has published numerous books with international publishers such as: Environmental Change and Human Security in Africa and the Middle East (Springer 2017); Vulnerability of Agriculture, Water and Fisheries to Climate Change (Springer 2014); Science, Policy and Politics of Modern Agricultural System (Springer 2014); Sustainable Food Security in the Era of Local and Global Environmental Change (Springer2013), Global Food Insecurity (Springer, 2011); Sustainable Agricultural Development (Springer, 2011); Health, Environment and Development (European University Editions, 2011), and Climate Change, Energy Crisis and Food Security (Ottawa University Press, 2011). He has also published numerous research papers and made presentations on these at international conferences. In addition, Dr. Behnassi has organized many international conferences covering the above research areas in collaboration with national and international organizations and managed many research and expertise projects on behalf of various national and international institutions. Behnassi is regularly requested to contribute to review and evaluation processes and to provide scientific expertise nationally and internationally. Other professional activities include Social Compliance Auditing and consultancy by monitoring human rights at work and the sustainability of the global supply chain. Gilbert DavidGilbert David is marine and island geographer by training and research director in IRD: UMR Espace-Dev, head of the research team dealing with integrated approach of nature and society. During his career, he experimented different types of coviability. From 1984 to 1991, he studied the links between reef fisheries and food security of islanders in Vanuatu (South Pacific).

From 1991 to 1996 he was involved in a project dealing with the spatial coviability of New Caledonia. This big island was divided into three parts, an urban center (Noumea), rural areas with nickel mines and rural peripheries, whose evolution's trajectories were different. How cope with these diffrences and how change these trajectories to reach a viable future for all people of New Caledonia?

From 1997 to 2000, he was involved in the Regional Environment Programme of the Indian Ocean commission (Comoros, Madagascar, Mauricius, Reunion, Seychelles) working on the coral reef action plan in order to cope with the increasing uses of this ecosystem in the Western Indian Ocean region. From 2003 to 2009, he was based in Reunion island working of integrated coatal zone management (IZCM) and Marine protected areas (MPAs), both considered as tools for coviability. After 2 years in Brest, he is now based in Montpellier. IZCM and MPAs are still his main research topic.

Vincent Douzal

Vincent Douzal graduated from Institut national agronomique Paris-Grignon (INA-PG, now AgroParisTech) and École Nationale du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts (ENGREF). He completed a master in robotics and a thesis in computer science, on perception: mathematical modelling and data analysis of descriptive sensory analysis experiments, including the underlying theoretical framework on perception…