Copyright © 2011 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance.Michon, G. 2011. Revisiting the resilience of chestnut forests in Corsica: from social-ecological systemstheory to political ecology. Ecology and Society 16(2): 5. [online] URL: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art5/

Research, part of a Special Feature on Public policies and management of rural forests: lasting allianceor fool’s dialogue?Revisiting the Resilience of Chestnut Forests in Corsica: from Social-Ecological Systems Theory to Political Ecology

Genevieve Michon 1

ABSTRACT. The “chestnut civilization” is often used to qualify agrarian inland Corsica. Based on a criticalreview of historical sources and research on present dynamics, we show how this “civilization” has builtup on a long series of resistance and adaptation to external political forces, from Genovese and Frenchdomination up to the present period of independence claims. The construction of the castagnetu, the Corsicanchestnut (Castanea sativa mill.) forest, as a social-ecological system is based on a constantly evolvingcompromise between wild and domestic attributes, but also on socio-political resistance, incorporation,and innovation. We argue that the castagnetu’s resilience, beyond its social-ecological qualities and itseconomic profitability, is closely linked to a constant incorporation of identity and cultural values intochestnut trees and gardens, but also to the role assigned to the castagnetu by its supporters in the politicalpositioning of their relations to both central power and outside actors.

Key Words: chestnut; Corsica; political ecology; resilience; social-ecological systems

INTRODUCTION

Chestnut (Castanea sativa mill.) is usuallyconsidered a natural, spontaneous, wild resource.This overlooks the fact that in many regions ofsouthern Europe it was maintained with the supportof a specific agrarian and social system oftenidentified as the “chestnut civilization” (Pitte 1986),a resource management system extending itsinfluence from local social structures to politicalrelationships between chestnut growers and thestate.

Chestnut culture in Corsica constitutes an originalexample of domestic forest: a system dominated bytrees, between wild and humanized, whereecological and social components are closelyinterweaved. Nevertheless, because of the variousinterpretations and ideologies attached to the term“forest”, and because the Corsican name“castagnetu” and its French equivalent “châtaigneraie”have no direct translation into English, we will usethe Corsican name “castagnetu”.

The contemporary castagnetu is quite different fromthe postmedieval chestnut harvesting system, the

19th century flourishing subsistence castagnetu, orthe decaying chestnut stands of the industrialrevolution. However, what relates these differentphases is the persistence of a complex bioculturalrelationship system connecting trees to humans,landscape to uses and techniques, and ecosystemevolution to the local society’s internal dynamics.From its emergence to its contemporary revival,chestnut culture allows for a rigorous analysis ofprinciples of coevolution between the social andecological subsystems. The long chain ofinnovations, adaptations, breaks, and continuitiesthat maintained the system until now allow for aquestioning of its internal resilience.

We first discuss the role of this intricate bioculturalrelationship system in the castagnetu’s resilience.Change is analyzed in terms of adjustment,adaptation, or disruption operating in a correlatedway in the different subsystems, i.e., tree biologyand ecology, socio-technical systems, localinstitutions, and rules, and over different temporaland spatial scales. We present this social-ecologicalsystem in three steps. We first focus on theelementary social-ecological unit: the chestnut tree,replacing the construction of cultivar diversity in an

1IRD

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interplay between biological necessity and culturalidentity, and analyzing the social-ecological role ofpractices that aim at maintaining the tree in thehuman sphere. We then expose how the oscillationbetween wilderness and humanity has beeninstrumental in the resilience of the chestnut forest.We finally concentrate on the “chestnut society”,emphasizing the coevolution of economic andsocio-technical systems, and explore how resiliencehas been historically managed through theadaptation of ownership and behavior rules.

The castagnetu is also integrated in wider agrarian,social, and political systems, that determine anotherset of complex conditions of existence andtransformation. A socio-historical perspective,analyzed through a political ecology approach,allows for a reinterpretation of the castagnetu’sresilience in light of the resilience of the wider agro-political system in which it is embedded. We presentthe castagnetu’s political ecology in three phases.We first analyze the chestnut tree as the instrumentof domination of island populations by theirGenoese and French rulers. We also highlight itsutilization in the island’s resistance to thisdomination, and explain why it has finally beenincorporated at the large scale in the island’s ruraleconomy and livelihood. We then explore itstransformation into a positive “natural” value bypolicy makers. Lastly, we explore the contemporarypoliticization of chestnut by Corsican farmers in thecontext of growing identity claims. We concludewith a discussion on the necessity and validity ofcombining approaches in resilience thinking.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THEHISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OFCHESTNUT CULTURE IN CORSICA

Corsica is a mountainous Mediterranean island.Under Italian domination for six centuries, it wastransferred to the French Kingdom in 1768 and thenbecame part of the French Republic. Until themid-16th century, the island was managed throughan extensive silvopastoral system with a doubletranshumance whereby people and herds movedbetween the winter grazing lands in the coastalplains and the mountain rangelands. Graincultivation was sporadic. From 1548 throughout the17th century, the Genoese Authority introduced thecompulsory cultivation of chestnut. Shepherdsslowly became chestnut growers and settled morepermanently in mid-mountain villages, which

altogether reorganized the food system, the socio-technical equipment, the island economy, and thewhole socio-cultural system. Chestnut culture fullydeveloped during the 18th and 19th centuries,providing flour for daily meals, fodder for animals,i.e., sheep, goats and pigs, and fresh fruits for trade.It supported booming population densities, thehighest densities in Europe by the end of the 18thcentury, up to 140 inhabitants/km². By the end ofthe 19th century, local industries development, ruralpopulation hemorrhagic outflow toward urbancenters, and the agony of mountain agricultureeffected the collapse of chestnut culture. Around1980, the history was again reversed. Localinitiatives started to rehabilitate the decayingchestnut trees and re-established the chestnuteconomy within contemporary market dynamics(Fig. 1).

A SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM:CONSTRUCTION AND RESILIENCEACROSS SCALES

The chestnut tree: back and forth betweenwilderness and humanity as a strategy forsurvival

The chestnut tree is probably the most “humanized”of all European forest trees; it was managed andplanted for fruit production in antique Roma, andfurther domesticated in France, Italy, Spain, andPortugal since the Middle Ages (Pitte 1986).However, unlike other domesticated fruit trees, itstill looks like one of the largest native forest trees.This “in-between” status, between wild anddomesticated, nature and culture, is the structuringfeature of the chestnut system identity. How does itplay in ecological and social resilience?

Chestnut domestication in Corsica has produced agreat diversity of varieties (Simi 1977) that havebeen selected, named, reproduced though grafting,and exchanged between villages, and that constituteone of the major features of the island’s chestnutculture. This diversity constitutes both an adaptationto the variety of microenvironmental conditions anda buffer against parasitic and climatic risks. It alsoallows for extending the harvest period and the arrayof food uses. Moreover, because of the tree’s auto-sterility, diversity is vital for cross-pollination. Informer times, villages’ identity and pride wererelated to the array of their chestnut varieties that

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Fig. 1. Inside the castagnetu.

contributed to a specific flour’s flavor (“gout deterroir”) and constituted the basis of intervillageexchanges.

This constructed diversity and the socio-technicalpractices attached to it connect the chestnut tree tothe human sphere, but the fluidity and the ambiguitybetween wild and domesticated remain. Treesreproduced from natural seedlings are consideredas wild, even though the seeds come from varietiesthat have been empirically selected for centuries.These trees, called “bastardu”, are considered thebest pollen producers, and therefore the strongestreproducers, and provide the best stocks forgrafting. In this cultivated system, the quality of theharvest, and the economic success of the plantation,depend on the vigor of a wild component. Thisincorporated wild quality also played an importantrole in the ecological resilience of the chestnutecosystem during the 19th century collapse.

Nowadays, because of changes in chestnut standsmanagement, cultivar diversity is no longer anagrarian necessity. Moreover, its commercialvalorization is difficult because most chestnutfarmers are not aware of the specific uses formerlyattached to each variety, and flour productionusually uses a mix of cultivars. However, diversityis increasingly raised as a positive quality for bothscientific (biodiversity) and cultural (heritage)reasons.

Chestnut production is directly correlated to humanlabor input; grafting is essential to maintain thecultivars’ qualities and identity and planted treeshave to be regularly pruned to produce, whichallows maintaining a favorable shape, fosteringproduction, and controlling pests. Without constantcare, trees are heavily prone to damage and disease;they slowly decay and stop producing quality fruits,as exemplified by the 20th century’s collapse ofmost of the island’s castagnetu. Some farmersclearly relate the boom in canker and ink diseasesto the abandonment of chestnut intensive culture.However, the tree’s global survival under adverseconditions is ensured by a reversion from domesticto wild; crown dieback and the production ofcoppice shoots allow for the decaying trees’persistence or revival in the abandoned castagnetu.“Back to wilderness” can be considered as atemporary strategy for the tree’s ecologicalresilience.

From forest to orchard and back: fluid identityand resilience of a cultivated forest

This wild/domesticated duality also characterizesthe ecosystem. Where or when do the orchards stopand the forest start (Fig. 2)? How do nature andculture combine to shape the castagnetu? Accordingto chestnut history in Corsica, this ambiguitybetween wild and cultivated has cyclically been

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removed and re-emerged. How has it played inecosystem resilience?

Seen from an agro-technical perspective, thecastagnetu can hardly be assimilated to an “orchard”because this category usually refers to a well-ordered, homogeneously treated plantation of asingle tree variety. But is it a forest? Seen from thelocal society’s perspective, it clearly belongs to thedomestic sphere. Along with vegetable fields, thechestnut plots belong to the “circolo” (Ravis-Giordani 1983), the village cultivated and fencedlands, adjoining but distinct from cultivated openfields (“presa”) as well as from wilder bushyrangelands (“maquis”) and forests. Chestnutproduction, i.e., fruits, flour, and animal products,is clearly attached to the agricultural sphere, not tosilviculture. Plot management practices containwilderness in acceptable limits. Specific constructionaimed at water conservation, e.g., irrigationchannels and small walls, or at fruit storing anddrying enhance human presence in the landscape(Fig. 3). For today’s chestnut farmers, the term“forest” is counterproductive because it negates thecultivated, domesticated, appropriated, and constructedcharacter of the castagnetu.

Seen from a management perspective, thecastagnetu exhibits a rather continuous back andforth movement between wild, managed, andcultivated with a coevolution of practices andecosystem structure. Chestnut production on theisland has long been achieved through harvestingmanaged trees “self established in local forests andwoods” (Casanova 1998:18). During the slowestablishment of chestnut culture, grafting andplantation of selected varieties coexisted with themanagement of self-established, ungrafted trees.Afterward, chestnut production was conceived andmanaged as an intensive monoculture, with labor-demanding practices and high social control. Withthe industrial revolution, it reverted to moreextensive forms of management, sometimes closeto gathering, while the clean chestnut plots evolvedinto dense tangles of unmanaged chestnut trees andself-established maquis bush. Reverting towilderness, through a more natural forestfunctioning, allowed the system to surviveabandonment. Nowadays, chestnut producers re-enter the abandoned castagnetu and try to inventnew production practices that compromise betweenwild and domestic. Old decaying trees are severelypruned, fruit harvesting and processing aremechanized, but diversity is not managed anymore(Gal I Tré Valli 2005).

Chestnut culture as a social system

Seen from the society’s perspective, the castagnetuhas consistently acted as an organizing principle ofthe individual life cycle, village livelihood andeconomic exchanges, labor hierarchies, andgenealogies. It supported daily subsistence ofdensely populated villages, providing starchesthroughout autumn and winter, animal productsthroughout the year, and income for exceptionalexpenses. Fruits or flour were traded for olive oiland wine with lowland villages. The socio-technicalsystem was based on specific equipment designedfor manual fruit harvesting, drying and processing,and on labor allocation organized by familynetworks and involving all present generations,from grandparents to grandchildren (Casanova1998). Economically and socially integrated into theagro-pastoral system, the castagnetu was ensuringthe long-term continuity of economic and socialstructures. Because of its longevity, the treerepresented the link between generations because atree planted and grafted by an individual wassupposed to benefit the next four generations.

At the turn of 20th century, with the opening ofisland rural societies to more global agrarian andindustrial economies, the castagnetu became aprovider of income for social and geographicalmutation through the felling of decaying trees andthe sale of timber to tannin industries (Pitte 1986).Solidarities attached to the castagnetu were thusredefined; consuming the chestnut rent establishedby former generations allowed for the adaptation offurther generations to changing world conditions.

Nowadays, a new chestnut economy is beinginvented in which the combination of heritage, i.e.,inherited knowledge, practices, and biologicalstructures, technical innovations, and newsolidarities establish production in a compromisebetween a tradition linked to chestnut civilizationand the modernity of a market economy (Auclairand Michon 2009). New practices are developingthat displace the former socio-technical position ofchestnut culture, i.e., valorization of extensivelymanaged castagnetu through pork production (porkproducts issued from local types of pigs grazing onchestnuts are famous local specialties in Corsica),or exploitation of timber which is still at anexperimental stage under the supervision of ForestServices. Former community ties have beenreplaced by a variety of social and professionalnetworks, e.g., chestnut producers groups, the“Appellation d'Origine Controllée” organization (a

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Fig. 2. An overview of the castagnetu.

type of official, geographical indication), and theBucugnà fair, extending beyond the island society(Gal I Tré Valli 2008). Intergenerational linkagedoes not refer as much to economy as it did before,but chestnut’s growing patrimonial value is nowredefining the link to heritage and traditionthroughout the island society (Michon and Sorba2008).

The formerly dominating silvopastoral system hasnot been supplanted by chestnut culture but hasslowly integrated it. One of the key factors of thisincorporation and of the castagnetu’s globalresilience relies on the social treatment of theeverlasting tension between tree farmers andshepherds, assigning the respective places for treesand animals. This resilience basically depends ondeep modification of the appropriation system andestablishment of strict behavior rules for thedifferent stakeholders.

In the former, prechestnut resource managementsystem, most of the lands were under commonproperty, either at lineage or village levels.Collective and egalitarian rules organized graincultivation and animal mobility but hardlyaccommodated tree culture. When Genoa started toimpose chestnut cultivation, drastic changes had tobe made because chestnut tree plantation logically

induced long-term land appropriation by individualsand their descendants. The major innovationoccurred through the invention of a property systemdissociating rights to the land and rights to the trees:trees planted on the commons were privately ownedby the planter and his heirs, but the land itselfremained the property of the village. This customaryparticularity in land property systems wasintroduced very early, as soon as islanders realizedthat they could not escape the compulsory treecultivation system, on the village commons as wellas on undivided lineage lands and on churchproperties. It was reinforced as chestnut culturefreely developed during the 18th century when mostfarmers could not afford to buy agricultural land fortheir plantations. It remains up to the present dayand is acknowledged in article 533 of the Civil Code(Nouvel 2000).

The protection of trees and harvest against animalswas also ensured through various rules, includingthe permission for fencing the land around youngtrees, and controlled animal circulation undermature trees through the supervision of a shepherd.The most original rule concerned the totalprohibition of animal circulation in the castagnetuduring harvest period; in this system called“furestu”, shepherds had to keep the animals awayfrom the unfenced castagnetu during the entire

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Fig. 3. Building within the castagnetu.

restriction period that was set by the villageassembly, and they were held responsible for anydamage to the harvest.

These practices allowed for a mutually beneficialcohabitation of trees and animals throughout threecenturies. Today they are meaningless because mostof the chestnut territory is not tended anymore.However, other compromises have to be developedto allow for a harmonious cohabitation betweenchestnut growers and other stakeholders, i.e., pigfarmers and their extensive forms of space andresources management; urban dwellers whoconsider the castagnetu as a free space for gatheringwild fruits; and investors who start consideringchestnut land for residential development.

AN EMBEDDED SYSTEM: POLITICALECOLOGY AND RESILIENCE OFCHESTNUT CULTURE AT WIDER SCALES

We now want to highlight how conditions anddirections of change are linked to political andeconomic processes at wider scales. Drawing on apolitical ecology approach, the castagnetu isdiscussed as a more global social-ecological systemresulting from, but also embedded in, the interactionbetween local populations, external socio-politicalforces, and the environment.

The castagnetu’s political ecology largely refers tothe complex and changing relationship between theisland population and its successive administrators.These relations involve misunderstanding, conflict,coercion, oppression, and disqualification, but alsoindirect cooperation, adaptation, and incorporation.From the Genoese Administration to the FrenchFifth Republic, the castagnetu appears as the mainarena of confrontation not only between Corsicanfarmers and the administration, but also betweeninsularity and rurality, considered as the essentialattributes of Corsican and mainland or urbandevelopment values.

Chestnut and domination: from compulsorychestnut cultivation to resistance andcontrolled incorporation

From the Genoese domination to the Frenchadministration mandated by Louis XV and hissuccessors, the island rulers consistently tried toimpose their agrarian and social ideology; for them,existing resource management systems closelyaligned to wilderness had to be replaced by morecivilized practices, i.e., agriculture. Chestnut wascentral in this transformation/domination system;Genoa tried to impose it to settle mobile pastoralpopulations, whereas France tried to destroy itbecause it was held responsible for the island’s

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economic and moral underdevelopment (Pitte1986).

From 1548 to 1850, successive chestnut policieslargely relied on the perception of native Corsicansas backward, amoral, and violent salvages reluctantto adopt civilized agriculture and modern socialinstitutions such as land property, wage labor, orcapital accumulation. The first Genoa Governor in1548 referred to the “laziness” and the “listlessness”of islanders who “leave their lands unploughed”(Serpentini 2000:45). According to this attitude,population mobility linked to silvopastoral practices“enhances violence”; planting chestnut will settlepopulations and pacify them. For the FrenchKingdom, chestnut was also “the food of laziness”because “a chestnut forest does not require anycultivation” (de Pommereul 1779, as cited in Pitte1986:116). Chestnut was considered a weapon initself because it provided food during wartime andconstituted a refuge for rebels (de Marbeuf 1769);thus, uprooting the tree would weaken resistanceagainst the new rulers.

For Genoa, chestnut imposition was also a necessitylinked to colonial policies; it facilitated coastal landallocation to colonials because it helped settlingpopulations in midaltitude villages, and releasedland for cultivation, leaving surplus for export,because chestnut provides greater amounts ofstarches than grain cultivation. For France, thedomination of chestnut, which comprises up to 88%of village lands, “deprives the island from theenormous advantages it could draw from thecultivation of wheat and all sorts of grains” (as statedin Louis XV’s ordinance of June 22nd, 1771,restricting new plantations: Arch. 1771, as cited inPitte 1986:117).

Corsicans consistently resisted those policies thatwere so incompatible with their livelihood system.Under Genoese domination, resistance wentthrough a phase of rejecting the chestnut, and it tookmore than a century for Genoa to impose thechestnut tree; five ordinances were promulgatedbetween 1548 and 1646. Under French occupation,defending the chestnut tree had become a means forasserting identity and self-determination, and LouisXV did not succeed in restricting its plantation.

Beyond the overturn of chestnut’s role in localpolitical struggles, the association of the chestnuttree to independence, freedom, and resistance to theoppressor is constant throughout the island’s

history. Resistance consistently relates to the globalconfrontation between local agrarian values andadministrative development ideologies. From the16th to the 18th century, the early capitalisticdynamics of colonizers could not accommodate theisland’s communitarian “horto-pastoral” (Dumont1952) civilization in which money hardly existed,development of social relationships was moreimportant than accumulation of commodities, andproperty was not a precondition to production butthe result of human labor (Casanova 1998). Ruralevidence did overcome these agrarian utopias;Corsican shepherds succeeded in diverting chestnutto the benefit of existing resource managementsystems whereas their growing protestations ledLouis XV to give up his policy.

In spite of resistance to Genoese policies during the17th and 18th centuries, chestnut pervadedthroughout the island economy. However, this slowdomination of the chestnut tree did not meet theobjectives of the Genoese administration, whichwas the replacement of nomadic pastoralism bysettled arboriculture, and of common property byindividual land ownership. During the 18th and 19thcenturies, the tree was literally reinterpreted byCorsicans and incorporated into geographical,legislative, and mental spaces liberated, or created,in the prevailing systems by technical, institutional,and social innovations (Pitte 1986). Most authorsanalyze this incorporation as economic andMalthusian evidence; chestnut culture was the onlysystem able to produce enough starches for thegrowing island population and allow for furtherdevelopment. This positive relationship betweenchestnut production and demography is not the onlyfactor. The foreseen incompatibility betweenpastoralism and tree culture on which Genoa hadbased its policies was reverted by the dynamism oflocal systems and practices that made chestnutculture and pastoralism quite complementary; thecastagnetu offered additional space and resourcesfor animals whereas seasonal labor involved inchestnut production followed the rhythms of herds’movements (Ravis-Giordani 1983).

The adoption of chestnut culture as the basis of dailysubsistence therefore led neither to the expecteddestitution of existing resource managementsystems (the double transhumance still exists today)nor to the liberation of land for grain production; in1850, chestnut culture covered 33,000 ha asopposed to 14,400 ha for grain culture. On thecontrary, while extending the possibilities of the

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former silvopastoral system, it allowed a quickintensification of production systems and anoticeable improvement of local livelihoods,entailing demographic and economic developmentthat could not have been possible through the formerextensive pastoralism. This success was alsostrategic in the resistance against Frenchantichestnut policies and constituted a key factor forthe global system’s resilience.

The construction of chestnut as a positive valueby political elites

Until the mid-19th century, successive political andcultural elites viewed chestnut unfavorably. Thesituation then radically changed; technical services,scientists, and intellectuals started praisingchestnut. This inversion was linked to majorchanges occurring in global economic systems aswell as in the chestnut system itself. It went througha total redefinition of chestnut and itsreappropriation as “an element of OUR localFOREST wealth” (Arch. 1887; author's emphasis).In adopting chestnut as a forest tree that “maintainssoil and water” and “ensures a good climate” (Arch.1887), policy makers not only completely alter itthrough abusive naturalization, but also confiscateit to the benefit of forestry services. This suddenvalorization of castagnetu by policy makerscorresponded to its collapse as a farm-based social-ecological system. As farmers started makingprofits in cutting chestnut and selling timber to localtannin industries, the administration endorsed itsprotection. The castagnetu was not praised becauseof its positive contribution to rural livelihoods, butprecisely because chestnut farmers abandoned it andperpetrated the “assassination of a FOREST”(Méria 1970, as cited in Pitte 1986:290; author'semphasis). Once again, chestnut policies ignoredthe logic of local dynamics, and were aimed atenlightening chestnut farmers who were againconsidered backward, ignorant, and grasping(“making them understand the seriousness of theirsituation, and understand their real interest”: Arch.1891), and at protecting the trees against the“carelessness of their owners” (Arch. 1902).

The castagnetu was collapsing, and with it theproductive chestnut landscape and civilization.However, this collapse was essential in theresilience of local livelihood systems because itplayed a key factor in their global transformation;income provided by the cutting down of decaying

trees allowed for agricultural modernization andhelped local development, whereas the global decayof the chestnut base stimulated out-migrationtoward urban centers and distant colonies.

The political reconstruction of chestnut as apositive local value by producers

After almost a century of naturalization throughecological dynamics as well as policy efforts, aselsewhere in Europe (Pesteil 2001, Dupré 2002,Bromberger et al. 2004, Chassany and Crosnier2006, Giundani 2007), the Corsican castagnetu isreviving. It stands at the heart of a localreappropriation movement raising rurality, insularity,and cultural identity as positive values foundinglocal development. Even if it is still in search ofsustainability, the 21st century castagnetu revivesthrough denaturalization of the ecosystem andsocio-technical modernization. Contrary to otherrehabilitation movements that capitalize onenvironmental qualities of local chestnut culture(dos Santos 2005, Giundani 2007), Corsicanchestnut farmers use the heritage of locally evolvedknowledge, social links, and culture as the mainresource for chestnut rehabilitation, and adapt it tothe technical and economic conditions of the 21stcentury. They fight against the common perceptionof chestnut landscapes as natural forest wealth,highlighting why and how locally born knowledgeand social networks that have built these landscapeshave to be reinvented to fight castagnetu’sasphyxiation by bushes and diseases. Beyondchestnut, they assert that, in contrast to the imageof Corsica as a natural paradise, Corsican nature canonly be saved by culture (Michon and Sorba 2008).

Unsurprisingly, the relations of the new chestnutfarmers to local administration and policy makersare often problematic, but the renovation movementis trying to break its historically corrupted relationto local and national socio-political hierarchies inestablishing new alliances with wider social,technical, and political networks. They areexchanging experiences with other chestnut-producing regions in the Mediterranean, forgingnew relationships to consumer groups, touniversities, and research centers, accessingEuropean development institutions and funding,and displacing the latent conflicts between farmersand the island’s socio-political elites in charge ofrural development.

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DISCUSSION

Our analysis raises important questions: at whichscale(s) and through which coupling of technical,social, and ecological subsystems should changeand adaptation be addressed and assessed? How canwe construct an idea of resilience that encompassesthe complexity of ecological, technical, social,economic, and political realities?

We have tried to address these questions byexamining the complementarity between twodifferent academic approaches, one attempting tounderstand local-level resilience through theanalysis of coupled technical, social, and ecologicalsubsystems, the other further testing resilience ideasat larger scales, looking at socio-political andinstitutional forces through the analytical frame ofpolitical ecology. We have also largely integratedthe historical dimensions of change. The fewanalyses of chestnut systems transformation inEurope either emphasize the global history ofchestnut development (Bruneton-Governatori 1984,Pitte 1986), which does not take into account thelocal transformations of coupled ecological andtechnical subsystems, or concentrate on local,internal histories linking local practices to social oragrarian factors (Moreno 1989, Casanova 1998). Inan attempt to harmonize both approaches, we haveproduced an analytical framework developingseveral imbricate scales: starting from theevaluation of local social-ecological systems’resilience at different levels (tree/practices;ecosystem/practices; resource management/livelihoodoutcomes/local institutions) and reinterpreting it inlight of complex interrelations developed at largerscales (global resource management system/socio-political processes).

The understanding of local-level resilience focuseson the intricate relationship between transformationsin natural, technical, social, and institutionalsubsystems at different levels ranging from the treeto intervillage territories. This approach hashighlighted not only the importance of re-evaluatingthe resilience of ecological subsystems within theframe of local human subsystems but also theexistence of coevolutionary processes betweenthese different subsystems. We have shown thatthese processes are also nonlinear; in developingchestnut, human action has transformed localnature, the evolution of which, in turn, became adetermining factor in shaping and influencingtechniques, practices, rules, decisions, and choices

made at individuals and collective levels. Thechestnut system has cyclically existed as a forest,i.e., the managed forest of the postmedieval periodand the 20th century abandoned stands, as anintensive orchard designed and maintained byregular human intervention, and as a mixed-garden,i.e., the semiwild/semidomesticated castagnetu ofthe 17th century or the contemporary chestnutsystem. This fluidity, whereby practices, institutions,i.e., social objectives, relations, and rules related tochestnut, and stand ecological conditions areconstantly coevolving, is certainly the maincondition for successful resilience at local scale.

The second movement in the analysis emphasizedthe fact that local socio-environmental processes arenested in and connected to dynamics occurring atother scales and in other domains where politicaland economic interests become major drivers ofchange and complexity. This approach has shownthe central role of the castagnetu’s development andtransformation in a global socio-political andagrarian construction allowing for resilience of theisland rural system through adverse, sometimesbrutal, political conditions. By doing so, we havereframed the castagnetu’s resilience within theresilience of larger systems, ranging from globalresource management and livelihoods of inlandCorsica to relationship systems relating localsocieties to the outside world. This analysis alsoreveals the complex network of opposed ideologiesand practices relating political administrativehierarchies and chestnut farmers. In spite ofinadequate and potentially destructive policiesbased on persistent ignorance or misunderstandingof local realities and continuous disqualification oflocal populations’ practices and culture by policymakers, chestnut farmers have consistently pursuedtheir own dynamics. Nowadays, globalization tendsto erase this traditional tension between chestnutfarmers and policy makers; chestnut future dependsmore on distant collaboration, exchange, and aidthan on local or national hierarchies. This break inchestnut’s political subsystem, combined withconstructive innovations in the technical andeconomic subsystems, allows for a new phase in theresilience of the global chestnut livelihood system.

CONCLUSION

Conceived as a conceptual framework linking theevolution of ecological communities and socialsystems (Berkes et al. 2003), resilience thinking also

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aims at understanding the diverse set of processesthat drive social-ecological change at multiplescales (Holling 1996). Difficulties arise from thecomplexity of social-ecological systems, whichmakes it difficult to fully incorporate social,economic, and political realities at various scales(Anderies et al. 2006). Theoretical models ofresilience therefore often fail in guidingcomprehensive analyses of change in real, complexsituations where change and responses to changeare articulated through a diversity of variables,processes, and scales. Alternative socio-environmentalapproaches have to be mobilized that place moreemphasis on the influence of social, political, andeconomic structures, or institutions and actionsacross scales in shaping the evolution of local social-ecological systems. The combination of resiliencethinking and political ecology may facilitateunderstanding the multiple levels and facets ofinteraction within complex human ecosystems;these approaches represent two complementary andconverging transdisciplinary attempts to address therelationship between human and ecologicaldynamics of change.

The purpose of our analysis, using the castagnetuas an example, has been to evaluate how thecombination of these two approaches allows fordeveloping a comprehensive analysis of resourcedevelopment, accumulation, and degradation, ofpractice adaptation and innovation, of social-ecological collapse and revival in a particular social-ecological system. In doing so, we hope to havedemonstrated that tracing connections acrossspatial, temporal, and intellectual scales is bothnecessary and valuable in the analysis of complexsocial and ecological systems.

Responses to this article can be read online at:http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art5/responses/

Acknowledgments:

This work was funded in part by the French AgencyANR within its ADD Program, under the POPULARresearch program.

HISTORICAL ARCHIVES

Arch. 1771. Arrêt du Conseil d’Etat du Roi LouisXV du 22 juin 1771 (A.D. Corse du Sud) in Pitte,J. R. 1986. Terre de Castanides - Hommes etPaysages du Châtaignier de l’Antiquité à nos Jours. Fayard, Paris, France.

Arch. 1887. Lettre du Ministre de l’Agriculture du20 juillet 1887 adressée à tous les préfets desdépartements où poussent les châtaigniers. in Pitte,J. R. 1986. Hommes et Paysages du Châtaignier del’Antiquité à nos Jours. Fayard, Paris, France.

Arch. 1891. Lettre du Préfet de Corse Bonnefoy-Sibour du 30 juillet 1891 à tous les maires duDépartement en vue de la défense des châtaigneraiesin Pitte, J. R. 1986. Hommes et Paysages duChâtaignier de l’Antiquité à nos Jours. Fayard,Paris, France.

Arch. 1902. Lettre du Ministre de l’Agriculture du26 mars 1902 aux préfets au sujet des maladies duchâtaignier. in Pitte, J. R. 1986. Hommes etPaysages du Châtaignier de l’Antiquité à nos Jours. Fayard, Paris, France.

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