A “pop” ecology statement: the flowering meadows contest in the french Alps

An innovation and a big hit among local farmers, the first Flowering Meadows contest took place in the Bauges Massif (French Alps) in June 2007. The contest awarded the best agri-ecological equilibrium in a natural meadow managed by producers of milk and quality-label cheese. This contest is original in all respects. The organizer was the Natural Regional Park of the Bauges, which farmers regard as an “environmentalist” institution. This statement refers to their memory of past policies imposed in the name of Nature protection. In the sixties, baujus peasants and theirs herds were banished from most of the high mountain pastures in order to establish a sanctuary dedicated to wildlife. Additionally, the contest was designed to be a test for the implementation of new style of agri-environmental contracts between the State and the farmers. Obligatory methods are given up and the farmer is free to do what he wants so long as he complies with an ecological norm. This norm is defined in a very simple way: a list of flower species among which four, at least, must be found in each third of the meadow. This proposal, made by ecologists, has been included into the French agri-environmental scheme of the new Common agricultural policy (CAP). In 2008, Flowering Meadows contracts will be implemented outside protected areas for the first time. The Flowering Meadows contest can be analyzed as a dynamic which confounds the historical division between protected areas and production areas in the modern administration of nature and people. In this paper, we show how ecologists decided to break out of the boundaries and extend their activities to farmlands by using the most powerful incentives of the modernization process: agricultural contests for excellence and CAP resources. Mountain farmers could also find in Flowering Meadows contracts a legitimization of their activity and contribution to the society: producing milk and biodiversity. In conclusion, we argue that in order for agricultural activities to become more ecological, administrators and managers of Nature must become more agricultural-minded