Bocages between science and public action

Abstract

The important issue of redeveloping the bocage has elicited many reactions from the public. This has led to both a research effort to understand the ecological function of hedges and the deployment of regulatory measures to control their evolution, particularly during land use planning operations. The results of the research have informed public action, and the evaluation of this action has led researchers to change their theoretical references. The advent of landscape ecology and the change of focus from hedges to the network of hedges, then to the insertion of the latter in the mosaic of cultures, has modified the ways of conceiving land use planning, and has placed the bocage in the context of other policies such as Ecophyto. Indeed, the reduction in the use of pesticides requires a good management of the beneficial insects that also use hedges. The bocage is a good example of the need for a sustained relationship between various actors and the interest of renewing scientific concepts for action.