Maintaining the integrity of the French terroir: a study of critical natural capital in its cultural context

This paper appraises the integrity of France's patrimoine naturel as carrier of collective cultural meanings and as biophysical life support infrastructure. First we situate philosophically the French patrimoine naturel concept with its connotations of cultural heritage or transmission, in relation to the ‘strong sustainability' precept of maintaining key environmental functions as critical natural capital (CNC). The main results are then presented of a recent survey by the French Institut Français pour l'Environnement (IFEN) exploring perceptions of natural capital—and its criticalness—for the French society and economy. Building on the IFEN survey base, a qualitative analysis highlights France's natural capital as a life support infrastructure vulnerable to breakdown or contamination through pollution, accidents and the production of wastes. Ecosystem contamination is, moreover, closely associated with defilement of food—dioxin in chickens, mistrust of GMOs in agriculture and food, and the vache folle—mad cow disease. The ‘sink' function of natural capital is thus in conflict with the culturally determined ‘site' and ‘scenery' functions. To conclude, we discuss (very briefly) some features of the French political culture that bear on prospects for a successful sustainable development strategy.