Localizing products: a sustainable approach for natural and cultural diversity in the South?

"Reconciling rural development and biological and cultural resource conservation means installing bottom-up, determined, freely accepted structures that link the sustainability of production methods, localized product quality and profitability " says Marie-Christine Cormier-Salem, a researcher at IRD and coordinator of the BIODIVALLOC* programme. In a range of ecological, social and political situations, field surveys have revealed the diversity of local specialities and the multitude of initiatives that have resulted from various strategies. It is this research work by the BIODIVALLOC programme that the conference will be centring on.

"Every product produced in developing countries, including sorghum, quinoa, coffee, argan oil, read tea and even cheese, has a local and cultural identity. They come from specific ecosystems, parks or protected areas. Does promoting these products help to maintain biodiversity? " wonders Martine Antona, a researcher at CIRAD* and member of the conference Organizing Committee. In many developing countries, there are a multitude of initiatives that serve to establish or strengthen the links between agriculture as a whole and biodiversity. These operations are often headed by local players and encouraged by the national and international authorities.

The aims are not only commercial (promoting local specialities) and legal (protecting names, limiting counterfeiting), but are becoming environmental, identity-centred and even patrimonial. The idea may be to protect "traditional local products" (designations of origin or collective brands) or just to promote local specialities. Such approaches are closely linked to sustainable resource and landscape management and the promotion of local know-how. They concern unprocessed or processed product with various uses (foods, medicines, cosmetics, crafts, etc).

Sharing experiences

Thanks to the presence of more than 200 observers of and players in these approaches (scientists, negotiators, managers, NGOs, private firms, etc), most of them from developing countries, the conference will provide an opportunity of transferring knowledge from North to South (where these issues have long been discussed, for instance in France with its famous "produits de terroir", but also in Europe with PDOs), but also and above all between developing countries such as Brazil, which has recognized expertise in protecting its immaterial heritage.

UNESCO, the UN organization specializing in culture and science, implement various Conventions and plans of action aimed at ensuring the knowledge and know-how, cultural diversity and biodiversity are respected. The organization is a forum for dialogue and knowledge, and fosters exchanges of experience and resources.

"CIRAD supports its partners, backs up local dynamics, and helps define the processes by which players take standards on board, for instance ", Martine Antona explains. "Our research is committed research ". For example, as far as CIRAD is concerned, one of the ANR BIODIVALLOC project's operations is to support the setting up of a rooibos or "red tea" production chain and geographical indication in South Africa and to analyse the conditions for success.

"While there are high expectations on the part of producers and consumers and the national and international authorities, there is some doubt as to the relevance of the tools being used, the legitimacy of labelling drives and their impact in terms of ecological and social dynamics ", stresses Bernard Roussel, a lecturer at the MNHN and member of the conference Organizing Committee. This means setting up structures capable of sustaining aspirations that are not only imposed by industrialized countries or governments. This would enable players at local level to draw maximum benefit from current globalization patterns, in which cultural factors are playing en ever greater role in economic rationales and the idea of origin is increasingly a guarantee of quality, as shown by the "Home Gardens of Ethiopia" programme supported by the FFEM and backed up by teams from IRD and the MNHN.

This is the approach favoured by the conference organizers**. They are expecting contributions from legal specialists, economists, anthropologists, historians, geographers and ethnobiologists, biologists and agronomists. Based on concrete case studies, the participants will be studying the rationales that underlie the processes and approaches by which local specialities are promoted in developing countries, and the issues associated with the sustainable management of ecological and social diversity.

The aim will also be to analyse the unequal progress made in the debates and public policies in very different countries and ecological, political, economic and social situations. A round table will be open to non-scientists (from the Hermès Foundation, which has agreed to associate its image with these issues relating to quality promotion, the Slow Food movement, and Malongo, which is increasingly involved in fair trade).

* The BIODIVALLOC programme: " Localizing products: a sustainable approach for natural and cultural diversity in the South?" (2006-2009) is supported by ANR Biodiversité (ANR05 BDIV002)
** Organizing Committee: M. Antona (CIRAD), M. Bouamrane (UNESCO), MC. Cormier-Salem (IRD-MNHN), A. Luxereau (CNRS-MNHN), B. Roussel (MNHN-IRD)