Traditional ecological knowledge, conservation of biodiversity and sustainable development. Proceedings of the Indo-French Colloquium at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 16 October 2001

International audience; This book consists of contributions to the on-going debate on the use and misuse of natural resources and their management for a sustainable local development, an issue of considerable importance for India. To tackle it, new approaches and tools are discussed in the context of the degradation of forests, agroforestry systems and uncultivated lands studied as socio-ecological systems. They notably focus on traditional ecological knowledge and its combination with formal knowledge through various adaptive and integrative methodologies for a better management of natural resources, including the conservation of the biodiversity. Contributions finally show the importance to be given to the perceptions, needs, constraints and strategies of stakeholders as they result in compromises to reach sustainability, at the interface between socio-economic uses of natural resources and their ecological integrity.