Un droit pour les forêts : D’une approche universelle à des droits localisés

Abstract

Forests are receiving increasing attention from public authorities and civil society. They provide raw materials and valuable reserves of biodiversity. They also have recreational and ecosystem functions. The law is also evolving and facing the same societal, environmental, economic and health challenges. This book analyses the reciprocal influences between law and forests. It examines the capacity of the law to support forest development by providing appropriate instruments, both existing and yet to be invented. Understanding the forest in a different way would in turn help to rethink the law and the power relationships it organises, and to review its methods and concepts. The law provides current and potential tools to best meet the specific needs of each forest and the aspirations of its stakeholders. It also identifies common principles to provide solutions to the problems facing societies and states. A universal framework then makes possible localised rights adapted to the specific characteristics of each forest. This book is an invitation to take a legal journey to the heart of the forest in order to (re)visit the law applicable to it, understand it and help it evolve. It takes the liberty of making excursions abroad or immersing itself in other disciplines in order to find good practices and original ideas, or even to provoke them.