Making biodiversity a public problem – The case of dead wood in forests Making biodiversity a public problem – The case of dead wood in forests

• Main Author: Philippe Deuffic and Christophe Bouget
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement (INRAE) 2011-03-01
• Series: Sciences, Eaux & Territoires
• Subjects: SOCIOLOGY; DEAD WOOD; FOREST; BIODIVERSITY; ECOLOGY
• Online Access: http://www.set-revue.fr/sites/default/files/archives/article_23.pdf

How did the issue of deadwood become an important part of management policies for forest biodiversity? The authors provide a number of answers on the emergence and inclusion of deadwood in management policies.<br>How did the issue of biodiversity emerge? Why are certain categories of living beings ignored? How did the issue of deadwood land on the public-policy agenda? To answer these questions, we used the approach established by Trom and Zimmerman (2001), which identifies the necessary steps toward "institutionalisation" of a public problem, i.e. public criticism of a disturbance, objectivisation of the problem, networking of stakeholders and acceptance of the problem by stakeholders in the field. Using the example of efforts to conserve deadwood in forests, we show that placing an issue on the public agenda does not mean all aspects of biodiversity are involved. In addition, certain potential stakeholders such as forest owners are not inclined to adopt these policies. It is not that they contest the legitimacy of the policy, but rather the procedural aspects from which they feel excluded.