Traditional Anthropogenic Fires in a National Park: When Local, Technical and Scientific Knowledge Hybridize (Cévennes, France).

In the French Cévennes National Park (dry Mediterranean mountains), cattle and sheep farmers use fire to maintain their pasture. Behind the paradox of traditional anthropogenic fires occurring in a protected area, a possible consensus emerges around the use of fire. Indeed, the services provided to local people are not necessarily harmful to the environment (biodiversity conservation, firefighting). In the field, farmers, park managers and local firefighters meet regularly and confront their knowledge and practices, creating favorable contexts for appearance of composite and hybrid knowledge. If this example allows to discuss the various services provided by anthropogenic fire (in its social and environmental dimensions), it also gives the opportunity to examine the importance of confrontation of local, technical and scientific knowledge and to question the role and place of anthropogenic fires - between prohibition, maintenance and (co-)evolution, and behind this the challenges of co-management - in a context of global change.