Society

How, since 2006 when the organic law on the finance law entered into force, has the figure become the centrepiece in a way of governing where the political decision is subjected to a logic of result? The author wonders about the current hold of the management evaluation over the definition of the governmental activity. He shows how it makes the democratic practices lose their strength. It addresses the forms of resistance that civil servants and citizens can use to oppose this erosion.

This book champions the idea that it is possible to achieve plentiful agricultural production whilst improving the quality of the environment. It discusses the various specific features of ecologically-intensive agriculture, sets out the changes in the concept and states the means of expanding the use of ecological functionalities for agriculture and animal husbandry. It addresses the conditions for global economic and social viability, seen as a factor in successful ecologically-intensive agriculture. Based on a panel with very wide experiences, this work will fuel the debates between agricultural professionals and environmental groups so that farmers themselves become true champions of the agricultural biosphere.

Fruit of the photosynthesis of plants, the biomass is an essential resource for humans, supplying them with food, energy and materials. With its three sources (forest, crops and waste), the energy-biomass is restricted by the production capacity of soils and its competition with its other uses. Could it therefore contribute to the growing energy needs of humanity and to the energy transition that must take place to reduce our oil and gas consumption substantially?

This work is a compilation of the most recent scientific thinking. It attempts to assess whether man can still adapt to the consequences of his own action on the environment and moderate his thirst for "always more".Eminent researchers present results that are sometimes alarming, often puzzling and occasionally reassuring. The work addresses in succession the biological abilities of the human species to adapt and their limits, the consequences of our activity on the environment and the margins for manoeuvre available to us. It develops premises for solutions and the scientific, ethical and philosophical interrogations they generate.

Defined in the Bruntland Report in the 1980s, sustainable development is a notion that remains largely controversial: helping to assess it is the main objective of this book. What are the specific features of sustainable development? What relationship does it enjoy with growth? What is its timescale - long-term development or countdown? Sustainability is studied here across various sectors - urban, landscape, biodiversity, industry and agro-materials.

Evaluation is at the basis of new management and work-organization methods but also to theoretical and technical difficulties. Is it possible to determine the principles of a rational evaluation of human activity?

How can cultivated plant biodiversity contribute to the transformation and the "ecologisation" of agriculture in Southern countries? Based on extensive field work in the Southern countries, a great deal of scientific progress is presented in all areas affecting agriculture (agronomy, plant breeding and crop protection, cultivation systems, etc.) in order to intensify the ecological processes in cultivated plots and at the scale of rural landscapes.

Philippe Descola is suggesting here an ecology of relationships between humans and non-humans: by agreeing to give up its anthropocentrism, anthropology will be able to resolve the debates which keep springing up between natural and cultural determinisms.