Pierre-Marie Aubert

• PhD
• Research Associate at Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations

Despite the increased attention, which has been given to the issue of involving knowledge and experts from the social sciences and humanities (SSH) into the products and works of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), little is known on what the expectations towards the involvement of SSH in IP...

In reaction to Greenpeace campaigns denouncing the impact of oil palm plantations in Southeast Asia, Golden Agri-Resources (GAR) – a major actor in the palm oil sector – adopted a zero-deforestation policy. The implementation of this policy raised a simple, albeit tricky, question: what is a forest? In response, Greenpeace, GAR and a consultancy fi...

Conducting the transition of the whole agribusiness sector toward carbon neutrality : Long-term trajectories and short-term paths Most greenhouse gas emissions in agribusiness come from primary production. Reducing to zero net emissions in this sector implies changes of such a magnitude that they can be made only by revamping the whole sector. For...

The proliferation of multistakeholder initiatives is deemed to be a key vehicle for the implementation of international agreements for sustainable development. This is the case with the “4 per 1000: Soils for Food Security and Climate” initiative (4PM), launched in March 2015 by French Minister Stéphane Le Foll, whose aim is to increase soil organi...

L’analyse diachronique de documents aériens met en évidence des dynamiques forestières fort différentes dans deux vallées voisines du Haut Atlas central marocain (Aït Bou Guemez et Aït Bou Oulli) au cours de la seconde moitié du XX e siècle. Comment interpréter de telles différences dans ces vallées placées dans le même contexte montagnard et biocl...

How do agricultural policies in the EU need to change to increase the sustainability of livestock production, and what measures could encourage sustainable practices whilst minimising trade-offs? Addressing such questions is crucial to ensure progress towards proclaimed targets whilst moving production levels to planetary boundaries. However, a lac...

Agriculture is the main driver of the rapid collapse of biodiversity, upon which all life on Earth, including agricultural production, depends. As we face the challenge of feeding a growing human population under a changing climate regime, the pressure on biodiversity is expected to further intensify. While the potential to expand and improve natur...

The need for an agroecological transition is regularly advocated by many actors and policymakers on the European scene, but many questions arise regarding the potential consequences that this transition may have on the rest of the world. Using a world biomass balance model, in this paper we show that a deep agroecological transition in the EU, if a...

While the importance of permanent grasslands (PG) for the conservation of high nature value habitats is often acknowledged, their role in most of the main sustainable food system scenarios published in the last few years is less explicit. In the best case, the place of permanent grassland in scenarios and policy agendas is their conservation; in th...

System dynamics and agent-based simulation modelling approaches have a potential as tools to evaluate the impact of policy related decision making in food value chains. The context is that a food value chain involves flows of multiple products, financial flows and decision making among the food value chain players. Each decision may be viewed from...

This paper proposes an innovative framework to describe sustainable transitions of food systems while considering simultaneously socio-economic and environmental issues, in a just transition perspective. This framework (i) describes the structural changes needed for a sustainable transition in food systems; (ii) assess their effects on employment a...

Agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) represent 22% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To meet the objectives of the Paris Agreement, the AFOLU sector greenhouse gases must be dramatically reduced and eventually transformed to net negative CO2e within this century. The decarbonisation choices will have significant environmental, social...

This paper reports on the problem of procedural and distributional fairness along the French wheat-to-bread food value chain and the specific hybrid approach of qualitative and quantitative modelling and simulation which was undertook to address the above issue from the perspective of socioeconomic sustainability of the supply chain system. The pap...

This Study presents the key results of a research that analyses the implications of an ambitious agroecological transition across Europe, following the TYFA scenario. Published in 2018, what it proposes by 2050 is fully aligned with the objectives that the European Farm to Fork and Biodiversity strategies aim to achieve by 2030, in particular rega...

L'agriculture doit faire face à de grands défis qui sont interdépendants : dérèglement climatique, production d'énergie, érosion de la biodiversité, pollution des milieux, sécurité alimentaire et santé humaine. Pour éclairer les politiques publiques, nous comparons des scénarios dont un objectif commun est l'atteinte de la neutralité carbone en 205...

For more than two decades market conditions for European producers have changed significantly due to liberalization and increasing price volatility. The objective of this article is to analyze how farming systems in five European countries (Denmark, Greece, France, Latvia, and the United Kingdom) have reacted to the emerging instability of the milk...

Déployé pour soutenir l’économie nationale à la suite des impacts de la pandémie de Covid-19, le plan France Relance consacre une enveloppe de 100 millions d’euros à la « Stratégie nationale sur les protéines végétales ». Parmi les objectifs déclarés, l’accent est mis sur l’augmentation des surfaces de légumineuses en 2030 et la réduction de la dép...

Déployé pour soutenir l’économie nationale à la suite des impacts de la pandémie de Covid-19, le plan France Relance consacre une enveloppe de 100 millions d’euros à la « Stratégie nationale sur les protéines végétales ». Parmi les objectifs déclarés, l’accent est mis sur l’augmentation des surfaces de légumineuses en 2030 et la réduction de la dép...

Le secteur agricole est au cœur d’enjeux majeurs, concernant la sécurité alimentaire, le climat et la biodiversité. Si tous les acteurs reconnaissent aujourd’hui la nécessité d’un changement de paradigme, peu s’accordent sur la direction à prendre. Les modalités de prise en charge de la biodiversité sont plus particulièrement au cœur de ce débat.

Transitioning agri-food systems towards increased sustainability and resilience requires that attention be paid to sustainable food consumption policies. Policy-making processes often require the engagement and acceptance of key stakeholders. This study analyses stakeholders’ solutions for creating sustainable agri-food systems, through interviews...

All Latin America and the Caribbean countries have ratified the Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global warming to between 1.5C and 2C above pre-industrial levels. Those goals require reaching net-zero carbon dioxide emissions by around 2050 and substantial reductions of CO2 emissions by 2030. Getting to Net-Zero Emissions takes stock of the le...

There is growing recognition that agri-food commodity markets are moving increasingly towards market-focused arrangements. In some sectors (e.g. dairy) we have already seen the development of new contracts (e.g. between farmer groups and processors) and various risk management-type strategies. Agricultural markets have always been characterised by...

La période actuelle est marquée, en Europe comme en France, à la fois par une intensification des débats concernant la déforestation causée par les importations de commodités alimentaires et par une certaine focalisation sur l'huile de palme. Cependant, c'est aussi et surtout via leurs importations de soja pour l'alimentation animale que les Europé...

This paper looks at aid ownership through the lens of negotiations that take place between a country and its development partners (DPs). Based on the case of Ethiopian food security policies, it combines a structural analysis of the negotiation capital of both parties with an actor-oriented analysis of the institutional setting through which negoti...

The global governance of food security and nutrition (FSN) has been evolving rapidly over the last 10 years. While the reform of the Committee on World Food Security (CFS) in 2008-2009 has been celebrated for its “exemplarity” with respect to inclusiveness and accountability, recent trends have led to a growing complexity and fragmentation of the g...

The current European agricultural model is in crisis. Over the last 10 years, it has had to cope with numerous challenges: prices instability, decrease in farmers’ incomes, environmental unsustainability, vulnerability to climate change, safety crisis, social contestations, etc. The need to deeply transform this model is now widely acknowledged. Am...

L'huile de palme, enjeu diplomatique ? Alors que les questions environnementales et sociales liées au développement du palmier à huile avaient jusqu'alors été essentiellement prises en charge dans la sphère privée, dans le cadre de confrontations/ collaborations entre société civile et acteurs industriels, elles s'invitent aujourd'hui dans les disc...

Cet article retrace l’émergence et la mise à l’épreuve d’une définition spécifique des forêts, conçue pour opérationnaliser l’engagement « zéro déforestation » pris par certaines firmes consommatrices d’huile de palme en réponse aux pressions des ONG de conservation. Il montre que cette définition résulte d’un compromis entre grandeurs industrielle...

The multiplication of the environmental issues lead to a twofold question – scientific and politic – that this paper aims to approach, focusing on the inquiry practices in relation with public sponsors. How to include objects of nature into the sociological analysis ? How to contribute to the management of environmental issues ? To answer to these...

Human activities are historical ecological drivers, and we need to better understand their effects on ecosystems. In particular, they have been very important in the shaping of the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. Researchers and managers nonetheless lack knowledge concerning the impacts of their combinations and their current intensity on the s...

Human activities are historical ecological drivers, and we need to better understand their effects on ecosystems. In particular, they have been very important in the shaping of the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. Researchers and managers nonetheless lack knowledge concerning the impacts of their combinations and their current intensity on the s...

RECOMMENDATIONS ❚ 1. In a context where most stakeholders recognise that the achievement of FNS under climate change requires changes in food systems, the role of the GACSA should foremost be that of a platform for experiences and knowledge sharing in order to: – a. analyse the respective strengths/weaknesses of different agriculture development mo...

Cet article montre que la qualification de la nature constitue un enjeu stratégique pour les acteurs impliqués dans la gestion de l’environnement, en s’appuyant sur le cas de la Camargue. Si les gestionnaires de l’environnement rencontrent d’importantes difficultés à réformer un jeu social qui externalise sur la nature les coûts de son fonctionneme...

Discussion paper on the methodologies used to map institutions in Sentinel Landscapes

Cet article montre que la qualification de la nature constitue un enjeu stratégique pour les acteurs impliqués dans la gestion de l’environnement, en s’appuyant sur le cas de la Camargue. Si les gestionnaires de l’environnement rencontrent d’importantes difficultés à réformer un jeu social qui externalise sur la nature les coûts de son fonctionneme...

This article questions the prevailing discourse whereby poverty in rural areas is purported to be the main obstacle to forest management in Morocco, leaving aside social and political aspects. For that purpose, it analyses the feedback loops between political goals and the technical dimension of management of these forests. Based on a retrospective...

Can Public Policy Be Changed through Development Projects? In southern countries, projects play a defining role in the implementation of public policy. Focusing on the Moroccan forestry policy, this paper jointly analyzes how projects can both reach their objectives and make public policy evolve. It shows that project implementation does not lead t...

La gestion durable des forêts (GDF) est devenue en vingt ans le paradigme dominant pour la gestion des écosystèmes forestiers, notamment en zone tropicale. Toutefois, l'incapacité à freiner la déforestation et la dégradation de ces écosystèmes interroge l'efficacité environnementale d’un tel concept. Sur la base d’une approche théorique en sciences...

At the turn of the millennium, the idea that the Moroccan forestry administration’s modes of action were changing was much publicised. There were claims that “concerted forest management” would alter the historically conflictual relationships between foresters and farmers and in this way the ecological status of forests would be improved. However,...

L’agdal, objet complexe et multi-facette au centre de cet ouvrage, est au cœur des sociétés amazigh et ainsi des transformations qu’elles connaissent ; objet complexe, dont l’observation nous invite à une réflexion plus large sur les changements de mode de gestion des ressources naturelles en cours dans la montagne marocaine et sur les perspectives...

L’administration forestière marocaine semble avoir adopté depuis les deux dernières décennies l’essentiel des recommandations issues des institutions internationales pour la mise en œuvre d’une gestion forestière décentralisée et participative qui prenne en considération les savoirs et pratiques locaux. Ces orientations sont déclinées dans un ensem...

Over the last two decades, the numerous failures of centralised politics which have been witnessed in the management of natural resources, as well as the mounting credi- bility of local, traditional, management doctrines, have prompted a number of countries to reorientate their modes of public intervention so as to involve these rural communi- ties...

This paper examines how local forestry management has evolved in the Aït Bougmez Valley (Central High Atlas, Morocco) in the last three decades and how this evolution has affected forest ecosystem conditions. It focuses on the impact of the forestry administration on ‘traditional forestry management’ since its introduction in 1985, and of recent in...

On désigne aujourd’hui communément sous le terme d’arganeraie un ensemble territorial assez vaste, situé dans le sud ouest marocain, entre l’Atlantique, les dernières montagnes de l’Atlas et les portes du Sahara. Ce territoire s’étend sur près d’un million d’hectares et doit son nom à la présence d’un arbre dont les caractéristiques attirent depuis...

Cecropia species, ranging from Mexico to northern Argentina and the West Indies, are pioneer trees that colonize cleared areas with high light. To determine their ages to help pinpoint the date of the area's disturbance, we need to understand their developmental and architectural changes over time. The simple architecture of Cecropia conforms to th...