The policyscape of agroforestry within Mediterranean protected landscapes in France

Agroforestry systems (AFS), presented by their supporters as systems able to reconcile multiple social and ecological functions, are potentially interesting for a diversity of sectoral policies such as forestry, environment or water policies. They are presently in a process of being institutionalized in Europe through the development of specific policy instruments. In this context, we investigated the policyscape of agroforestry, meaning the articulation between multiple policies impacting a diversity of AFS in two Mediterranean protected landscapes: the Ventoux biosphere reserve and the Verdon regional nature park. We conducted in depth interviews with 50 practitioners and institutional representatives from diverse policies directly concerned by AFS. We found that if some AFS such as silvopastures are highly intersectoral and concerned by a large diversity of instruments, others such as alley-cropping systems are confined in the agricultural sector (Figure 1). Presently, systems such as grazed pastures are largely ignored by policies. Our results indicated that instruments specific to agroforestry represent a minority in relation to the diversity of sectoral instruments impacting AFS at a landscape scale. Regarding this agroforestry policyscape, we discuss opportunities for agroforestry development with issues of policies coordination, lack of instruments or of involvment from environmental or land-use planning policies for certain types of AFS.