Constance Berté: Negotiated biodiversity. Urban planning faces the challenge of implementing the Avoid-Reduce-Compensate sequence

Thesis supervisor
: Olivier Coutard

Established in France in 1976, the Avoid, Reduce, Compensate (ERC) sequence imposes a significant constraint on land use planning. This mechanism adds an extra step to the planning process, involves intermediaries, and even partially transforms the planning project. Given that ecological compensation is specific in that it is compensation in kind, it also has significant spatial implications, particularly on local land transactions (both within and outside the market). Land, which is necessary for the implementation of compensation, is de facto placed at the forefront. In fact, compensation sites are created with a new use in the medium or long term. Local development conditions are then modified.

This research examines the application of the ERC sequence as a public policy mechanism, analyzing the strategies and practices of actors in the field who are dealing with the constraints imposed by the standard.

To study the transformations introduced by this regulatory constraint, a process-based approach has been adopted, focusing on three main stages: the construction of the standard itself (the "regulation"), its translation into an operational instrument through the establishment of equivalence agreements (the "equivalence"), and its integration into the development and land market (the "marketing"). Each of these three stages has an impact on the production of space and creates a constraint on future development projects.

Analysis of these processes reveals the discrepancies between the general objectives of the standard and its operational implementation, which tends to reduce and impoverish the components of biodiversity taken into account. The thesis focuses on the negotiations and power relations that influence the operationalization of the system, as well as the operations to reduce the definition of biodiversity considered at each of the three stages. These interpretations and adaptations are necessary given the difficulties practitioners encounter in applying the standard. In addition to the difficulty of understanding biodiversity, practitioners are confronted with the harsh reality of land use, which leads some actors (project owners, intermediaries, landowners) to change their land use strategies.

This work, using a qualitative methodology, is based on several empirical materials: extensive exploratory fieldwork that helped to clarify the central question and hypotheses of this research, interviews with project owners, intermediaries, and government departments, and a case study of two development projects in a medium-sized French city.

Thesis defense on Tuesday, March 14, 2022

Keywords
: ERC sequence, ecological compensation, urban development, land, negotiations, biodiversity

Year of thesis registration
: 2017

Doctoral school
: City, Transportation, and Territories (VTT)