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This paper scrutinizes the different roles played by scientists when they built and put on the agenda biodiversity conservation as a public problem, by taking dead wood preservation as an example. By playing six roles successively or simultaneously, they succeeded in transforming this neglected by-product of forest management in an essential indicator of forest biodiversity in less than a decade. This evolution was effective because of an intense work of categorisation, and unexpected climatic catastrophe, and the emergence of international environmental standards. This combination of factors led to a new reinterpretation of traditional forestry cognitive frames and their alignment on the ecologization of productive practices, more favourable to dead wood conservation.

Since the 1990s, some research suggests that the transformation of rural areas and the concern of anyone regarding her future allow the emergence of new public spaces. This work aims to contribute to the characterization of these new forms of public debates. It relies on an analysis of the perigordin breeders' project to open their farms in order to answer controversies linked to the Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) crisis. We describe the institutional progression of this farmer network, from its initial objectives to its rise as a “model for the Aquitaine Region” and the way it may be promoted by a territory which emphasizes farming heritage and agritourism. Then, we propose the results of a survey on visitors and report the discussions issues that may arise between them and farmers. This investigation leads us to conclude that these farm visits are one step of a public debate divided into several separate sequencing phases.

Publicizing a territorial problem about water in a controlled way. The case of the Charente Pertuis in FranceIn the Charente Pertuis site on the Atlantic coast, the issue of water resources distribution is publicized whereas the problem of water quality entering the oyster farming areas seems to be hidden. Based on the theoretical perspective of the social construction of public problems, the comparison of these two issues shows that publicizing a territorial issue can not be reduced to its public action, its media coverage or its discussion in a local scene. These different paths interfere in a process that can be weakened by stakeholders’ control. The end of the process becomes uncertain and depends on the work of significance that is produced when the different social fields of public arenas and medias meet each other.

Participation is frequently implemented to define localized common goods. The aim is to obtain a larger and more coherent legitimacy of the decisions compared to the traditional public action which supposes a preliminary conception of the general interest. In order to avoid the privatization of common goods by private interests, public policies tools recommend to associate a great diversity of actors with the deliberative process. Drawing on experience from a research program on multifonctionality of the forest in the south of France, we will wonder whether the implementation of these principles guarantees a more democratic definition of the public interest. It was observed that the discussions in connection with forest multifunctionality were mainly managed by forest actors. For as much, the problems resulting from the deliberative process do not confine the forest in a role of production. It assigns a fragile function of protection and especially a social function to it (recreational activities). We attend a publicisation of the forest whereas the frame of the participation forums cannot be described as democratic. This paradox questions us on the link commonly established between the stakeholders’ diversity and the protection of their private interests. We propose assumptions to explain this result which can appear paradoxical.

This article is an introduction to the special section “Ecologization of practices and territorialization of activities”. Considering the implicit proximity between the two processes, we propose a definition of ecologization and territorialization to which the authors of the fourteen contributions to this special section refer. They demonstrate that ecologization and territorialization can split, or almost operate without each other, and that their merging is always a construction. Finally, original categories of analysis are added to those anticipated (play of stakeholders, narratives, materialities, etc.) to question the promises of merging between ecologization and territorialization. The frame analysis reveals its relevance, by underlining established compromises, conflicts of norms and values between stakeholders of the territories but also their structural backgrounds.

In France, the intense public debate on pesticides is still hardly accessible to agricultural workers, even though they are expected to change their practices and are highly exposed. This configuration of pesticide use "transition" raises health, environmental and social justice issues, as do specific social movements, such as Environmental Justice in the United States or "ecologism of the poor" in the South (Martinez-Alier, 2014). We hypothesize that the weak voice of farmworkers in the public space is a sign of hindered capabilities (Sen 2000, de Munck 2008). Whether they are employees or farmers participating in winegrowing work, our research aims to identify the social processes, sometimes different, that strengthen or weaken their capabilities to express their concerns about pesticides. We test this hypothesis using an original methodological choice, an action-research committed to empowering vineyard workers in Gironde. It turns out that "strong" frames (risk management and occupational health policies) make it impossible for workers to express their concerns about pesticides. Other structural factors on the scale of the territory and the wine sector mean that the silencing of workers is dominant without being total. The "operational" difficulties in setting up a group of winegrowers, and even more so for the employees, are therefore particularly revealing of these antagonistic processes of (in)capacity at play in the transition to pesticides.