INFLUBIO
- Biodiversity management within the framework of transformation and maintenance of waterway infrastructures, in a context of ecological crisis
Biodiversity management within the framework of transformation and maintenance of waterway infrastructures, in a context of ecological crisis
The INFLUBIO project has studied how the mechanisms for taking biodiversity into account are apprehended by the actors involved in the Seine Nord Europe Canal project, based on a study of the categories used to govern material realities (wetlands, protected species, wooded areas, etc.), which we call motifs.
Presented as a major project to mitigate climate change through modal shift, supported by the European Union and creating jobs in a disadvantaged region, the CSNE has attracted little public criticism. The actors who participate in its environmental observatory are rather satisfied to see some of their proposals included in the project. Other environmental stakeholders have difficulty understanding all the information on the project and its impacts and are afraid of being held responsible for a further postponement of the project by voicing their criticisms. For all these reasons, biodiversity takes a back seat to the project and the associated fears are not well reflected in the public debates.
We conducted 31 semi-structured interviews with 29 people involved as experts or spokespersons in the governance of biodiversity in the area studied. During our survey, we also interviewed stakeholders on the governance of biodiversity on the Canal du Nord. This allowed us to benefit from feedback on an existing canal but also to understand what issues are specific to the management of environmental issues in the context of the Seine Nord Europe Canal as a canal built on no existing waterway and of a relatively new length. It emerges from this survey that the stakeholders perceive biodiversity both through environmental realities enshrined in law (established reasons) and other realities (contours under debate) linked to the project, the definition of which (temporality, scale, location, contour) poses a problem because they could have an impact on established reasons or, depending on the stakeholders, give rise to hopes or concerns.
Concerning the established reasons, the stakeholders trust contractual tools to manage agricultural land, hedges and roads, but for the management of forests, watercourses and wetlands, legislative tools are mentioned the most. The WFD, SAGEs and SDAGEs are very rarely mentioned by the actors interviewed as instruments for the governance of wetlands and rivers. In the area studied, there is no emblematic protected species that would federate opposition to the canal. The Symbiose association is doing political work to bring together the interests of preserving agricultural land with the preservation of biodiversity. As for wetlands, compensation for the loss of biodiversity in these areas remains a divisive issue.
The contours under debate concern the project itself, the temporality of which is often questioned, the biodiversity promised by the canal (living canal and lagoon banks) and its maintenance, the location and operation of multimodal platforms (economic activity zones, nature of goods flows, river share, road share, locally produced share, outlets), hydrological resources (underground and surface) and their quality in relation to the needs and operation of the canal, the crossing of the canal and the fragmentation of habitats, the landscape of the construction site (rights of way, embankments, excavations), the management and knowledge of the spaces concerned by the compensatory measures over time, the reality of the modal shift and the energy balance of the canal, the incidents in the life of the canal (invasive species, drownings, leaks, waste) and the modification of the runoff or mudflows following the digging of the canal or the land development that will accompany it These realities are considered to be only partially managed by public policy instruments. Our analysis has made it possible to classify these concerns according to the type of actors, their interests and their positions with respect to the project (for, against, in negotiation). Taking into account the interdependencies between these motives and contours in debate, we constructed three biodiversity warning scenarios that highlight the uncertainties about the cost of maintaining built biodiversity, the uncertainties about water resources in the face of climate change, and the risk of a rebound effect on road traffic and intensive agriculture. We have collected the responses that the project owner intends to provide to these alerts in order to build a more integrated and optimistic scenario.