Gérer l’urgence de la disparition du vivant : les contradictions temporelles de l’action publique

Abstract

In the present, anxiety-ridden context of ecological crisis, public action and public policies still do not include the temporalities proper to biodiversity. We analyze the temporal contradictions contained in the territorial policies for biodiversity implemented in the Hauts-de-France Region. Public action remains prey to an anthropocentric outlook which influences the aims and means of biodiversity policies due to existing political and economic constraints. This reflects a linear, short-term vision of time linked to the goals policies of New Public Management looking to obtain quantifiable results. On the contrary, biodiversity possesses the fluctuating and indeterminate temporality proper to ecosystems. Anthropic pressures – artificialization of the soil, pollution, the fragmentation of territories, climate change, etc. – threaten biodiversity maintenance and favor an irreversibly accelerated disappearance of species and ecosystems. Ecological irreversibility leads to a convergence between the temporality of public action and the temporality of biodiversity, in an eco-centric future.

Keywords

• biodiversity
• New Public Management
• Public action
• temporal contradictions
• anthropocentrism
• theory of evolution