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Public policies have known a new managerial approach growth promoted by the cognitive and practice framework of New Public Management. This development has empowered the institutionalization of efficiency and effectiveness indicators in public sector’s practices. In fact, it seems that ecosystem services and payments for environmental services register in this new philosophy. Drawing on this, this paper proposes to consider the production’s conditions of tools and monetary evaluation procedures in environmental policies. Finally, the article argues that this procedures contains and disseminate a reduction point of view about the biodiversity value.

This paper questions the relevance of the concept of “services provided by biodiversity”. The discourse of key actors practitioners of biodiversity has been studied.This research investigates the relevance of this notion through the actors’ principles of justification (assumed as plural) as well as its consequences on the biodiversity management. By using French convention theory, different justification polities and worlds of action of actors concerned by biodiversity have been highlighted. The analysis of interviews conducted with actors of the Nord-Pas de Calais Region (firms, associations, and biodiversity managers) in strong link (and sometimes less intense link) with biodiversity shows that the human-nature relationships appears as entering into three categories (Human as dominant, Nature as dominant and integration between Human and Nature).The perception of Nature depends on the scale of analysis, within which Nature is perceived as an object or a system. Given these differentiated perceptions, biodiversity protection policies must be based on appropriate instruments.The notion of Payments for Environmental Services (PES), which often refers to bilateral relationships and market-based instruments appears as limited and inappropriate to stakeholders' expectations at the local level.

Despite the growing interest they arouse, market instruments, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES), are still far from being the dominant political strategies in the conservation of biodiversity and protection of the environment, in Quebec as elsewhere. Even though the PES have received greater consideration in recent years, the field of legal studies regarding this question has hardly progressed. Within this context, the aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims to provide an overview of the different political systems incorporating the concept of ES in Quebec and to identify the role it occupies within these arrangements. Secondly, it also aims to consider more specifically how PES Programs implemented in the agricultural sector of Quebec can help improve existing political arrangements in this sector.

This paper shows the importance of developing an ecosystem services framework in line with the concept of environmental capital within an operational context of territorial development. A perception study was done in 2014 where 95 local stakeholders in the Karaburun Peninsula were surveyed: farmers, tradesmen, tourists, residents, associations, cooperatives, and municipality. It allows linking the notion of environmental capital to territorial development by identifying the ecosystem services of the peninsula and their potential impact on well-being.

The purpose of this paper is to question the meaning of the ecosystem services (ES) approach and its usefulness for regional natural parks. The field work realized in the Park Scarpe-Escaut includes: an observational experience in a research project aiming at valuing several ES on the territory, 10 semi-directive interviews and the analysis of the park’s management documents. The study concludes that ES have important limits, whether they are considered as decision-aid tools or as communicational tools. The case of the park Scarpe-Escaut is interesting because it challenges the belief in the efficacy of ES and monetary arguments for biodiversity protection, spread by the new environmental pragmatists.

Nature in the city is a significant asset for cities’ adaptation to climate change and contributes to the quality of life of people in many ways. Its contribution, predominantly positive but also negative, can be represented by ecosystem services and disservices. In this paper, we question the input of consideration, mapping and communication on ES in creating a common language among stakeholders with different background and practices, and to make nature more visible in urban planning decisions. The question is addressed qualitatively through stakeholders’ interviews. The results show the potential added value of se as a tool for acculturation, territorial dialogue and evaluation in favour of the conservation and development of nature in the city.