The multifunctionality of mountain farming: Social constructions and local negotiations behind an apparent consensus

Journal of Rural Studies 73 (2020) 34–45

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The multifunctionality of mountain farming: Social constructions and local negotiations behind an apparent consensus

T

Cécile Barnauda,∗, Nathalie Couixb a b

UMR Dynafor, INRA, Université de Toulouse, 31326 Castanet Tolosan, France UMR AGIR, INRA, Université de Toulouse, 31326 Castanet Tolosan, France

A R T I C LE I N FO

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Political ecology Power relations Ecosystem services Post-productivism Land abandonment Rewilding

The multifunctionality of agriculture is often understood as a normative political notion aimed at fostering the sustainable development of rural areas. Considering it as a locally, socially-constructed concept, the objective of this paper is to analyse how the idea of agricultural multifunctionality was appropriated, re-constructed and negotiated in local arenas dedicated to land-use management. Conceptually, we adopt a political ecology approach which uses a constructivist and relational approach to the concept of ‘ecosystem services’. Drawing on a case study in the French Pyrénées mountains, we analyse the diversity of discourses on the roles of livestock farming held by local stakeholders and unpack the ways that these different discourses interact with each other in the local action arenas. We show that a coalition of interests led to the emergence of a dominant and apparent consensus around the need to support livestock farming to maintain open landscapes. We also show that behind this apparent consensus, there are in fact tensions between people who want to maintain livestock farming for different reasons, with some having more instrumental visions than others. Finally, we demonstrate that the dominant consensus has generated a local taboo, hiding an unvoiced pro-rewilding perspective which considers that farmland abandonment could be an opportunity in terms of biodiversity. Incorporating the two concepts of ecosystem services and agricultural multifunctionality, this study allows us to discuss their respective heuristic values and policy implications.

1. Introduction: the multifunctionality of agriculture as a locally, socially-constructed concept In the last 20 years, there has been growing attention among both scholars and policymakers to the idea that “agriculture is multifunctional, producing not only food, but also sustaining rural landscapes, protecting biodiversity, generating employment and contributing to the viability of rural areas” (Potter and Burney, 2002) (p.35). The notion of the multifunctionality of agriculture emerged out of the 1994 Uruguay Round Agreement on Agricultural Trade, when agriculture was first integrated into the ongoing reforms of international trade liberalisation (Losch, 2004; Potter and Burney, 2002). This notion was introduced in the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in 1999 through specific subsidies for agricultural production, but abandoned a few years later, because it was considered as trade-distorting by the World Trade Organisation. Meanwhile, the notion had proliferated within academic communities working on contemporary agricultural and rural changes, such as rural geography, rural sociology and agricultural economics (Woods,

∗

2010). Like most successful concepts, which are used by a large range of community types, the idea of agricultural multifunctionality is far from being uniformly understood. Marsden and Sonnino (2008) distinguish between three paradigms, which lead to different definitions and conceptualisations. In the first paradigm, agricultural multifunctionality is restricted to pluriactivity, i.e. the combination of agricultural and nonagricultural incomes within the farm household. Multifunctionality of agriculture is merely understood as the multifunctionality of farmers (López-i-Gelats et al., 2015). In the second paradigm, based on postproductivism, rural areas are perceived as consumption spaces with cultural and social amenities that have value for growing urban populations. Agriculture is no longer central, with the focus instead on the multiple functions of rural landscapes rather than the multifunctionality of agriculture itself. The third paradigm of agricultural multifunctionality, which Marsden and Sonnino (2008) align with the rural development and agro-ecology paradigms, re-emphasizes food production and the central role of agriculture to sustain rural economies and local societies. In this paradigm, farmers are strongly connected with other local actors and activities through the social and

Corresponding author. Postal address: UMR Dynafor, INRA, Chemin de Borde Rouge, 31326 Castanet Tolosan, France. E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Barnaud).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2019.11.012 Received 23 April 2019; Received in revised form 25 October 2019; Accepted 7 November 2019 0743-0167/ © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/BY/4.0/).

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further, we analyse not only the diversity of people's representations, but also the way that people holding these different representations interact with each other in the local fabric of rural landscapes, and how they negotiate trade-offs between the multiple functions of agriculture and rural areas.

environmental functions of their farming activity. Despite their differences, the range of scholars working under these paradigms use the idea of agricultural multifunctionality as a normative concept. They perceive agricultural multifunctionality as something inherently positive, and reflect on the conditions to get closer to this ideal (Wilson, 2008). Some scholars such as McCarthy (2005) or Potter and Tilzey (2007, 2005) prefer to comprehend multifunctionality as an object of study and consider it as a “highly politicized, essentially discursive and deeply contested policy idea” (Potter and Tilzey, 2007) (p.1291). These studies depicted in particular a critical and political understanding of discourses surrounding agricultural multifunctionality in agri-environmental policies in western Europe (Potter and Tilzey, 2005). Following these authors, we approach the multifunctionality of agriculture as a socially-constructed idea, or more precisely, the subject of multiple social constructions. People use, interpret and transform the idea of agricultural multifunctionality with different ideas in mind, based on various interests, norms and values, in the context of complex social interactions. However, while previous research analysed these social constructions in the political national and international arenas, within the policy struggles and resistances about agricultural liberalisation (Potter and Tilzey, 2007, 2005), we suggest to focus on the local action arenas, within which farmers, other local resource users, and managers interact about land-use management. These local action arenas have been impacted by the international and national policies built around the idea of agricultural multifunctionality, so the concept has permeated local discourses (Bjørkhaug and Richards, 2008). This is especially true with regard to mountain livestock farming in European uplands, an economically marginal form of agriculture that has been supported by policies over previous decades for its multifunctional character (Deverre and Sainte Marie, 2008; Eychenne, 2012; O'Rourke et al., 2016). Indeed, since the 1970s, there has been a consensus among scientists and policymakers regarding the need to maintain extensive livestock farming in mountains to prevent land abandonment and its negative consequences on patrimonial landscapes, tourism economy and biodiversity (Le Floch et al., 2005; MacDonald et al., 2000). However, this consensus sometimes conveys an idealistic view of mountain livestock farming that overlooks that different types of mountain agricultural systems provide different types of economic, social, and/or environmental functions (Fleskens et al., 2009; Holmes, 2006), and that not all functions are necessarily compatible with each other. For example, a farmer who is involved in agritourism (i.e. therefore providing a strong cultural function) will have less time for his farming activity and might be forced to abandon some grasslands (with negative impacts on biodiversity) (López-i-Gelats et al., 2015). There are trade-offs at both farm and landscape levels, and therefore choices that are made, either explicitly or implicitly. This study seeks to understand the social mechanisms underlying these choices. Drawing on a case study from the National Park of the Pyrénées, in the south west of France, where there is a local political consensus around the need to maintain multifunctional livestock farming, this paper aims to analyse the way that the idea of agricultural multifunctionality has been appropriated, re-constructed and negotiated in the local arenas dedicated to land-use and natural resource management. More precisely, it aims to understand how the consensus around the multifunctionality of livestock farming was locally built and negotiated, and what lies behind this consensus. To do so, we analyse the diversity of discourses around the roles of livestock farming held by local stakeholders, and unpack the way that these different discourses interact with each other in local action arenas. Through these discourses, we look at the representations of the different functions of agriculture and rural landscapes, as well as the diverse meanings of multifunctionality. This is a way to address a research gap mentioned by several authors (Bills and Gross, 2005; Hall et al., 2004; McCarthy, 2005), which is the need to go beyond abstract considerations of multifunctionality to produce data on concrete preferences and representations regarding rural areas and agriculture. Going one step

2. Conceptual framework: a political ecology approach using an ecosystem services lens to uncover the social constructions of agricultural multifunctionality Our research draws on a political ecology framing, which looks at how competing discourses and power relations affect land-use and natural resource management, generating winners and losers (Escobar, 1996; Robbins, 2004). Discourses are defined as “webs of meanings, ideas, interactions and practices that are expressed or represented in texts (spoken and written language, gesture, and visual imagery), within institutional and everyday settings” (Bischoping and Gazso, 2016). These discourses are shaped by social relationships, power relations and institutions, and vice versa, they have impacts on social relationships (Buchanan, 2013; Hajer, 1995; Rikoon, 2006). Understanding this nexus of discourses and social relationships is central to analyse the social constructions and negotiations surrounding natural resource management (Castree and Braun, 2001). In this study, we combined this political ecology approach with the concept of ecosystem services (ES) as an analytical tool to identify the discrete functions of agriculture and rural areas mentioned in discourses. ES are broadly defined as the benefits people obtain from ecosystems (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005), and three main types of ES are commonly distinguished: provisioning services, such as food and timber, regulating services, including water quality regulation or pollination, and cultural services such as an aesthetically pleasant landscape or recreational activities. In early stages of ES mainstream research, agriculture was mainly considered as an external driver that degraded ecosystem and diminished ES provision. Since then, however, most branches of ES research have recognised the active role of farmers in the co-production of ES (Fischer and Eastwood, 2016; Lescourret et al., 2015; Spangenberg et al., 2014). Ecosystem dis-services are also increasingly accounted for (Blanco et al., 2019). They are defined as “the ecosystem generated functions, processes and attributes that result in perceived or actual negative impacts on human wellbeing” (Shackleton et al., 2016). Throughout the remainder of the paper, mention of the ES concept will implicitly also include ecosystem disservices. In this study, we could have adopted a conceptual framework based on the concept of agricultural multifunctionality to identify the different functions of agriculture under debate. The reasons why we have instead adopted an ES lens are two-fold. Firstly, the ES concept induces a shift and displaces agriculture from its central position. Within the ES framework, the goods and services are produced by the ecosystems, which can be transformed by agricultural activities. Within the paradigms of agricultural multifunctionality, even in the post-productivist paradigm that broadly looks at the functions of rural landscapes, the focus is on the benefits that are directly or indirectly derived from agricultural activities. People do, however, value rural landscapes for multiple reasons, and some of these reasons might not be related to agriculture. Some people might even prefer rural landscapes without agriculture, because they value wilderness and biodiversity. These values are a blind spot of studies based on the concept of agricultural multifunctionality. The second reason why we adopted an ES lens is to reveal the people behind the functions of agriculture, both the ones who benefit from these functions and the ones who provide them. Research on agricultural multifunctionality tends to focus on the functions of agriculture, and not on the beneficiaries of these functions (Huang et al., 2015). The joint products of agricultural activity are considered as 35

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contestation around these categories.

public goods that widely benefit society as a whole. Conversely, the identification of ES beneficiaries is central in ES research. As Huang et al. (2015) note, a service is not considered a service unless a beneficiary has been identified. On the provision side, farmers are seen as providers or co-providers of the joint products of agriculture in both agricultural multifunctionality and ES research. However, ES frameworks potentially embrace a larger range of providers, by looking at all the people who shape ecosystems, including for example, foresters or hunters. The ES concept has generated multiple controversies (Barnaud and Antona, 2014; Kull et al., 2015), in particular the ES economic valuation approaches that convey a Western and utilitarian perception of nature, which could lead to its commodification (Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez, 2011; Sullivan, 2009). However, the last decade has also seen the rise of numerous alternative approaches to ES that emphasize its heuristic dimension to foster sustainable development and biodiversity protection, and that aim to include a wide diversity of values beyond the sole utilitarian and economic values (Chan et al., 2012; Dendoncker et al., 2014; Pascual et al., 2017). Aligned with these critical but constructive approaches to ES, we adopted in this paper the conceptual framework developed by Barnaud et al. (2018), which is based on a relational and constructivist approach to the ES concept. As a constructivist approach, the adopted framework considers that ES do not exist per se, but are subjective perceptions of ecosystems (Barnaud et al., 2018). It aims to understand what ES are important to which people, and why, according to what interests and values. These can be instrumental values (i.e. when people value ecosystems for the benefits they provide them), intrinsic values (when people value ecosystems for themselves, independently of people) or relational values (when people value their relation to ecosystems) (Chan, 2016). The adopted framework is also a relational approach to ES, which focuses on social interactions. The framework uses indeed an ES lens to uncover social interdependencies between people1 (i.e. ES beneficiaries, providers and intermediaries) that were not previously visible or explicit, in order to reflect on existing or potential conflicts and collaborations (Barnaud et al., 2018). For example, when two ES are antagonist, i.e. when the provision of an ES decreases the provision of another, this can create a conflict of interest between the beneficiaries of these ES. This notion of social interdependency is critical for collaborative processes; people who feel that they depend on others to solve a problem or to improve their situation are indeed more inclined to engage in a collaborative process (Leeuwis, 2004). In the adopted framework, the key social interdependencies of the system are identified and in turn analysed according to four dimensions: (i) the degree of stakeholders' awareness of interdependencies; (ii) the formal and informal institutions that regulate these interdependencies; (iii) the levels of organisation at which actors operate; and (iv) the power relations affecting them (Barnaud et al., 2018). This conceptual framework has been applied to other case studies related to natural resource management in agro-ecosystems (Moreau et al., 2019; Salliou et al., 2019), but issues of power relations and contesting discourses were not central in these applications. In this paper, we provide an application that fully explores the conceptual association between political ecology and the ES concept which underlies this framework, with ES identifying the particular ecological categories as objects of investigation, and political ecology supplying the theoretical frame for thinking about power relations and discursive

3. Material and method: semi-structured interviews and discourse analysis in a valley of the French Pyrénées 3.1. A background on livestock farming in the French Pyrénées The Pyrénées is a range of mountains in southwest France that forms a natural border between France and Spain. Traditional livestock farming in the French Pyrénées is based on pastoralism, defined as an extensive exploitation of seminatural grasslands for fodder harvesting and grazing (Eychenne, 2008). The specificity and richness of Pyrénées' landscapes and ecosystems is widely considered as the result of these farming activities, which have built and maintained these typical open landscapes of grasslands (Galop et al., 2013). However, since the 1950s, the Pyrénées, like other European mountains, have experienced a rural exodus, a declining number of farmers, and land abandonment, which has promoted massive land-use changes and high rates of spontaneous reforestation in former grasslands (Gibon et al., 2010; Lepart et al., 2011; MacDonald et al., 2000; Mottet et al., 2006; Vacquie et al., 2015). This process of forest encroachment onto open landscapes is, in France, referred to as the fermeture des paysages (literally the closing of landscapes). In the 1970s, this process began to be perceived very negatively, for reasons such as the loss of aesthetics and the cultural values of open landscapes, or the increase of natural hazards like forest fires, and more generally as the symbol of the decline of the local farming communities (Le Floch et al., 2005). As a result, as early as the 1970s, agriculture in the French mountains was supported through direct government subsidies to farmers, due to a scheme that explicitly supported agriculture in less-favoured areas for their contributions to society, including maintaining a local, social fabric, and preserving the landscapes (Eychenne, 2012). Later on, in the mid- 1990s and early 2000s, in the context of the greening of the Common Agricultural Policy, agri-environmental measures started to support extensive grassland practices, in order to preserve the specific biodiversity of grasslands (Deverre and Sainte Marie, 2008). These various policies have strongly impacted upon the professionals of the farming sector in the Pyrénées, who have widely adopted the ideas and language of agricultural multifunctionality in order to justify the need to support their activity (Eychenne, 2012; Lazaro, 2015). This provided therefore, an interesting place to study how the idea of agricultural multifunctionality was locally adopted, re-constructed and negotiated. 3.2. Case study presentation Our case study is the upper part of the Aure Valley, located in the central part of the French Pyrénées, with elevations ranging from 728 to 3134 m above sea level. The landscape is dominated by open grasslands (34%), forests (20%) and rocks (18%) in the upper altitudes (Corine Land Cover, 2012). The main economic activity of the valley is tourism, with two ski centers in winter, and multiple outdoor activities available during the summer. Hydroelectricity is also an important source of local incomes. Although its economic importance has declined since the 1950s, extensive livestock farming remains the main land-use activity of the valley. Sheep and cattle are raised extensively, mainly for meat production, using grasslands in the pastures of high altitude in summer, and hay is produced in the lower parts of the valley during the winter. In terms of land ownership, summer pastures at high altitude are owned by municipalities, while the rest of the land is mainly privately-owned, characterised by high land fragmentation and multiple owners. This valley is also characterised by a high density of biodiversity conservation schemes. It is part of the National Park of the Pyrénées, and it includes two Nature Reserves and three Natura 2000 sites under the Habitats Directive, protecting in particular grassland habitats. Among the key species of conservation interest are the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), the Western Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), and the

1 In this paper, we frequently use the word people instead of the words actors or stakeholders. Considering an individual as an actor or a stakeholder is definitely useful for the analysis of social interactions, but it remains a simplification. Using the word people is a way to remind the complexity of individuals, who are often playing multiple roles, wearing multiple hats and having multiple stakes.

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Table 1 Synthesis of the differences between the four main sets of interviews. Year

Area/action arenas

Specific entry point

First exploratory interviews Second set of interviews

2012 2013

Roles of livestock farming Roles of livestock farming, interaction between livestock farming and biodiversity

Third set of interviews Fourth set of interviews

2015 2015

Aure Valley, no specific action arena A Natura 2000 site A Natural Reserve In depth exploration of the previous Natura 2000 site One village, with diverse action arenas

The interviews were all semi-structured interviews, conducted in a conversation mode rather than following a pre-defined list of questions. The ES concept was never explicitly used in the interviews, it was only a conceptual lens to analyse the transcripts. All interviews started with broad questions on the interviewee's life history and the description of his/her activities in relation with to the local environment, including a description of his/her organisation where relevant, and his/her specific roles in this organisation. This part was common to all the interviews. It enabled us to see what issues and functions of livestock farming, and which ecosystem services were spontaneously evoked by the interviewee, according to his/her life experience, activities, interests and values. The second part of the interview was different according to the different sets of interviews. In the first two sets, the interviewees were asked whether or not it was important, in their opinion, to maintain livestock farming, and why. Similar questions were also asked regarding the importance of protecting the environment, including questions in which the interviewees were asked to specify which elements of their local environment they were keen to protect. In the other two sets of interviews, the entry point was the observed environmental changes. The interviewees were asked about their general relationship with nature, including what was important for them in the surrounding environment and why, what were the main changes that had affected the local ecosystems in the past 10–20 years, what were the causes and consequences of these changes, and for whom. Finally, in the four sets of interviews, questions were asked about the social interactions in the action arenas under study, including identification of the main stakeholders' roles and positions, narratives of conflicts, negotiations, or collaborations. Other written sources of information were also consulted, such as reports of meetings of working groups and councils, press articles, and information bulletins available online. These documents were critical complements to the interviews for the analysis of historical social interactions. The interviews ranged from 1 to 3 h in duration and were transcribed in full. The qualitative analysis of these interviews aimed at elaborating typologies of representations and discourses, and then analysing how these diverse representations interact with each other within social relationships. The discourses and social interactions were analyzed with an ES lens, as presented in the conceptual framework section. In the fourth set of interviews, we undertook a systematic coding of the ecosystem services (ES) and dis-services that were evoked by the interviewees, either spontaneously or in response to questions regarding their local environment. The questions related to the causes and consequences of environmental changes were used to gain access to the interviewees' representations of ES providers and beneficiaries. The human causes of environmental changes indicate the people whose direct or indirect actions have an impact on ecosystems, i.e. the providers of ES, and the consequences of these changes indicate the people who are affected by these changes, who are often the ES beneficiaries. Finally, we identified and analysed in more depth some of the key social interdependencies among the beneficiaries and providers of ES. This analysis provided insights to the social constructions of agricultural multifunctionality in the local action arenas, as we shall see in the next section.

Pyrenean Desman (Galemys pyrenaicus). This valley was chosen as a case study because of the concentration of multiple activities with potentially competing objectives, i.e. livestock farming, tourism, forestry and biodiversity conservation, in the same place. This provided an interesting location to study the social interactions and discourses related to the multifunctionality of livestock farming. 3.3. Methodology for data collection and analysis This paper draws on a series of semi-structured interviews that were conducted in this valley between 2012 and 2015 (Table 1). After a few exploratory interviews conducted in 2012 with regional and local stakeholders, a more structured set of interviews was conducted in 2013 with the stakeholders of two action arenas within the valley, namely a Natura 2000 site and a Nature Reserve. Two other sets of interviews were then conducted in 2015, one exploring in greater depth the previous Natura 2000 site with complementary interviews, and the other focusing on one village, chosen because it included diverse action arenas such as another Nature Reserve, local associations of livestock farmers, and the community council (Table 1). 83 interviews were conducted in total, with 66 individuals (Table 2). The objective of the sampling was to gather a diversity of perspectives on livestock farming and spontaneous reforestation issues. We therefore interviewed people with diverse professional or recreational activities in relation with the local environment, including livestock farmers, hunters, biodiversity conservation managers, agricultural advisors, elected representatives, forest managers, tourists, tourism professionals, and residents (see Table 2). For each set of interviews, we adopted a snowball sampling method (Atkinson and Flint, 2004), starting with an initial list of interviewees based on the suggestions of local experts, and subsequently asking at the end of each interview for suggestions and contact details of people with different or important perspectives. Tourists were interviewed when encountered either in local shops and restaurants, or on the walking trails in the mountains. Table 2 Description of the sample of interviewees in terms of their main activity related to the natural environment (Nb. some interviewees might wear ‘two hats’, e.g. being both farmer and hunter; their “main activity” therefore corresponds to the dominant ‘hat’ worn by the interviewee during the interview). Main activity related to the natural environment

Number of interviewees

Livestock farmers Agricultural advisors Other agricultural activity (e.g. bee keeper) Actor of the food distribution system Managers of environment and biodiversity Forest managers Elected people Hunters Actor of the hydroelectricity sector Professionals of tourism Tourists Residents and second-home owners (no specific activity related to environment) Total

17 6 2 1 10 3 6 5 1 7 5 3

Relationship with nature, environmental changes Relationship with nature, environmental changes, ecosystem services

66

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4. Results: discourses and social interactions related to livestock farming

farm advisor may support sheep farming in a professional environment when facing a conflict between those who defend the presence of wolves' and sheep farmers, and yet may recognise, for personal reasons, the importance of wolves in the preservation of cultural and natural heritage. In the same vein, when we indicate that a given type of discourse is predominantly hold by a category of stakeholder, for example livestock farmers, it does not mean that all the interviewed livestock farmers adopted such a discourse. There are actually diverse types of livestock farmers who adopt diverse types of discourses. The Type A discourse emphasizes the productive functions of livestock farming, which should be supported as an economic activity adapted to the hard mountain conditions, that aims to produce food, and should allow farmers to earn their living due to adequate agricultural prices. In terms of ES, open ecosystems are also seen as productive. Rangelands and meadows provide grass and hay that are essential to feeding livestock. The expansion of forests is therefore seen as a loss of forage: “We lose grass every year” (Livestock farmer, 2015). This type of discourse was predominantly held by agricultural technical advisors and livestock farmers, who often expressed that they were not at ease with the evolution of agricultural policies and the subsidies that are increasingly justified by the social and ecological functions of livestock farming. The Type B discourse emphasizes the need to maintain livestock farming for the benefits it provides to local communities, in terms of the local tourism economy and regulation of natural hazards. The cultural and aesthetic dimensions of open landscapes of grasslands are considered a key element of the attractiveness of the valley for tourism, the primary local economic activity and a source of employment. In terms of natural hazards, the role of grasslands and meadows as traditional firebreaks is stressed, as well as the role of grazing for the prevention of avalanches, also considered economically important since there are two ski centers in the valley. This type of discourse was predominantly held by locally-elected representatives and tourism professionals, but also by some of the livestock farmers. For the latter, this was a way to justify the need to maintain their activity, and to gain support in local decision-making arenas. This Type B discourse reflects an instrumental vision of livestock farming. The idea is not to maintain livestock farming for itself, but for the benefits it brings to the people who live in the

4.1. Discourses on the roles of livestock farming A key initial emerging result from the interviews was the existence of a dominant and apparently consensual narrative around the need to maintain livestock farming to stop forest expansion. This narrative was encountered in almost all the interviews; only a few first-time visitors did not mention it. This narrative is comprised of four main elements. Firstly, there is the statement that the forest is expanding at the expense of former meadows and grasslands, especially at mid-altitudes and around the villages. Second, there is a negative judgment on this process, which is considered a problem: “If you could see a picture of here 60 years ago and a picture today, you could see that there is no more meadow. The forest has taken over. If it is not forest, it is shrub or moorland, but anyway it is nothing good.” (Elected representative and former hunter, 2015). The third consensual element of this narrative refers to the causes of this process, which is the decline of livestock farming: “In the mountains, when you have no more livestock, you can see the trees growing, and the shrubs that take over on the grasslands” (Livestock farmer, 2015). Finally, this dominant narrative leads to the conclusion that it is important to maintain livestock farming in order to maintain open landscapes. The cultural and aesthetic value of open landscapes was the most frequently evoked ES, mentioned by a majority of interviewees. However, our analysis shows that behind this dominant narrative and apparent consensus around the need to maintain livestock farming and open landscapes, there are actually different types of representations and discourses (Table 3). People don't want to maintain livestock farming for the same reasons, and they have different sets of priorities. We have identified five main types of discourses on spontaneous reforestation and livestock farming. This typology aims to highlight poles or extremes, which are sometimes caricatured. Individuals are often situated at a certain distance from, and sometimes at the meeting point of, these poles. Moreover, even in a single interview, an individual may oscillate between different viewpoints, and adopt different views depending on which ‘hat’ he/she is wearing at a given moment. Some interviewees also experienced internal contradictions. For example, a

Table 3 The main types of local discourses on livestock farming and forest expansion Types of discourse: main narratives - Dominant ES in the discourse type

Selected quotes from interviews

Type A: we should support livestock farming as an economic activity that allows livestock farmers to earn their living - Hay and grass - Food production Type B: We should maintain livestock farming for all the benefits it provides to local communities - Cultural and aesthetic value of open landscapes - Recreational activities - Tourism economy - Forest fire regulation - Avalanche regulation Type C: We should maintain livestock farming and open landscapes as a cultural heritage - Cultural and aestheticvalueof open landscapes

“Farmer's economic viability is central. They are not landscape gardeners” (Technical agricultural advisor, 2012).

Type D: We should maintain extensive livestock farming to maintain the biodiversity of open ecosystems - Intrinsic value of biodiversity of open ecosystems - Hunting activity

Type E: Why should we maintain livestock farming? Forest biodiversity is as rich as – if not richer than – the biodiversity of open ecosystems - Intrinsic value of biodiversity of woodland ecosystems

“As long as there will be livestock, the mountains will be maintained, it will be clean, it will be nice for the tourist. Because when the tourists will have to span brambles and nettles, in my opinion it will not work” (Livestock farmer, 2015). “There is a concern for fire … If we bring down the forest, the brush, to the edge of the house, that can bring us only big worries” (Elected representative, 2013).

“Nature is going to shrink, we will see no more sheep, we will not hear the sounds of the bells any more, it will be like a dead nature” (Tourism professional, 2015). “For me, the rangelands, the mountains, it is a heritage, our grand-parents gave it to us, it is our duty to give it to our children in the same state” (Livestock farmer, 2012). “These open habitats of grassland and moorland are habitats of community importance that are to be preserved. And the best way to preserve open habitats is to maintain grazing” (Conservationist, 2013). “Livestock farming maintains the clearings for the grouse. It is in our interest to maintain shepherds and herds, otherwise we will have only big game and it will become a problem” (Hunter, 2015). “On the one hand, they use the argument of keeping habitats open to maintain livestock farming and on the other hand they pay state employees to go and kill red deer, on the pretext that they keep habitats open! We should ask this question: couldn't the role played by sheep be played by the Izard and the red deer?” (Conservationist 2012)

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confirms that people belonging to the same broad category can hold very different perspectives. This is particular noticeable for livestock farmers and conservationists. Overall, this discourse analysis shows that behind the apparent consensus around the need to maintain livestock farming and open landscapes, there are actually different people who want to maintain livestock farming for different reasons, emphasizing different functions of livestock farming and the different ES of open landscapes (i.e. Type A, B, C and D discourses). It also shows us that the dominant narrative surrounding the need to maintain livestock farming is hiding a taboo in this valley: an unvoiced perspective, which believes that the decline of livestock farming could be an opportunity for recovering woodland biodiversity (i.e. Type E).

valley. As a result, it is not necessarily the livestock farmers that are needed, but the presence of livestock in the mountains for their grazing action, as illustrated in this quote: “We, tomorrow, cannot have brush cutters that replace livestock”, said an elected representative (2013). This is a major difference with the type A discourse that focuses on the livelihoods of local farmers. The Type C discourse suggests the need to maintain livestock farming and open landscapes for cultural heritage. While in the previous discourse, this cultural heritage is a way to maintain the valley's attractiveness for tourism, in this discourse, the cultural heritage is an end in itself. The two discourses highlight the same ES, i.e. the cultural and aesthetic dimension of open landscapes, but the previous discourse demonstrates instrumental values, whilst this discourse emphasizes relational values, i.e. a personal attachment to this type of landscape. The interviewed livestock farmers also expressed their sense of responsibility to maintaining this landscape. The expansion of shrubs and forests is negatively perceived as the symbolic representation of their failure to maintain the pastures that they inherited from their predecessors. Some interviewees predominantly held this type of discourse, for example some residents or tourism professionals who were passionate about the local, cultural identity, but this type C discourse was more often combined with other types of discourses, and appeared as consensual. For example, many livestock farmers were attached to the cultural heritage associated with their activity, and yet thought that livestock farming should be seen primarily as a productive activity. The Type D discourse emphasizes that extensive livestock farming should be supported in order to maintain the biodiversity of open ecosystems, since shrub and forest expansion leads to a loss of fauna and flora that are specific to open grasslands. What is sought is not necessarily a landscape with only open grassland ecosystems, but a balance between open, shrub, and forest ecosystems. Like the Type B, this discourse corresponds to an instrumental vision of livestock farming. It was predominantly held by conservationists and hunters, which is interesting since these two types of actors usually hold very conflicting positions. There were also some livestock farmers who adopted it. These were farmers who are shifting from a productive vision of their activity to be more in alignment with the expectations of society, and to be at ease with the subsidies that they obtain from agrienvironmental policies: “We know that we are not competitive, we know it. Our role is more environmental than productive” (Livestock farmer, 2013). The Type E discourse radically differs from the first four, because it does not consider that livestock farming should necessarily be maintained. This discourse questions the relevance of spending public money to maintain an activity that is no longer economically viable. It considers that if the livestock farming continued to decline, the shrubs and forest that were originally occupying the mountain would return, and this would lead to ecosystems and biodiversity that would be as interesting as – if not more interesting than-those currently in existence in the valley. In terms of ES, this discourse values the existence of woodland biodiversity. It is critical towards the previous discourse (Type D), questioning, in particular the argument of maintaining livestock farming for the sake of biodiversity. This type of discourse is a taboo in the local action arenas. The very few interviewees who expressed these ideas would not openly claim this type of opinion in a local council meeting, for instance. These interviewees were mainly some conservationists, foresters and second-home residents, who were less involved in local decision-making arenas than most of the other interviewees. However, as mentioned, many individuals oscillated between different types of discourses. The interviewees who held the Type E discourse often expressed that they had actually mixed feelings and representations. A conservationist, for example, explained that as a conservationist, he questioned the necessity to maintain livestock farming for biodiversity reasons, but as an individual going hiking during the weekend, he enjoyed the presence of livestock in the mountains. This illustrates the limits of thinking only in terms of stakeholders' categories. Regarding these categories, our study also

4.2. How social interactions shape and are shaped by these discourses In this section we will consider how these different discourses interact with each other in the local action arenas dedicated to the concerted management of ecosystems, and how these discourses shape and are shaped by the social interactions, institutions and power relations. We study in particular the social interactions related to the emergence of the apparent consensus, and the tensions that persist behind this consensus. To do so, we rely on the analysis of the social interdependencies that are derived from the functioning and dynamics of ES in the studied action arenas, in particular around a Natura 2000 site in the valley (Fig. 1). 4.2.1. A win-win arrangement leading to a consensus on the multifunctionality of livestock farming The local apparent consensus on the multifunctionality of livestock farming locally emerged a decade ago in the negotiations regarding the Natura 2000 site. When the Natura 2000 site was first announced by the state authorities and the regional elected representatives, it was strongly and unanimously rejected by local people. It was considered a top-down process that did not acknowledge the local community's ability to sustainably manage local natural resources, and as an infringement of liberty, with a fear of restrictions on human activities in the perimeter of the Natura 2000 site. Later, as in all Natura 2000 sites in France, local elected representatives were invited by the state authorities to preside over the council of the Natura 2000 site. Some locally-elected individuals explained in the interviews that they accepted in order to defend the rights of local people to maintain all human activities in the valley, especially tourism, as the main local economic pillar. A concerted process began, with several working groups and council meetings, involving a range of local stakeholders, such as hunters, livestock farmers, tourism professionals, pastoral advisors, conservationists, etc. During these meetings, the conservationists in charge of the management of the Natura 2000 site said that their intention was not to restrict human activities, and that on the contrary, they needed livestock farming in order to maintain the grassland habitats, which were of community importance. They drew on a diagnosis conducted by pastoral advisors which had shown that “the environmental issues were 95% the same as the livestock farming issues” (Conservationist, 2013). Locally-elected representatives who considered the maintenance of open landscapes as an essential element of tourism saw it as an opportunity for the local communities, and all the involved stakeholders agreed a consensus regarding the need to maintain open landscapes through livestock farming. While diverse types of habitats of this Natura 2000 site are designated for protection under the Habitats Directive (i.e. forest habitats, as well as grassland habitats), the efforts of the team managing the site were targeted towards the grassland habitats rather than the forest ones. Within a few years, several actions were implemented under the consensual goal of maintaing open landscapes, most of them funded by the second pillar of the Common Agricultural Policy, i.e. mechanical clearing actions, modernization, and consolidation of 39

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Fig. 1. Social interdependencies among ES beneficiaries, providers and intermediaries in the action arena of a Natura 2000 site regarding the issue of natural forest regeneration in open ecosystems.

pastoral advisors who are traditionally supporting the productive dimensions of livestock farming also integrated the environmental functions in both their discourses and actions. “We do not have purely environmental missions. That's clear […] It's more the environmental issues that arise” said a technical pastoral advisor (2012). Overall, through the consensus-building processes and in the context of the agri-environmental policies, the idea of agricultural multifunctionality has been internalized by local stakeholders and appropriated in different ways, serving their various interests.

pastoral equipment, and agri-environmental contracts paying for the salary of shepherds during the summer. In terms of social interdependency, this consensus corresponds to a synergy of interests between the multiple beneficiaries of the bundle of ES provided by open ecosystems of grasslands (Fig. 1). They are not all interested in the same ES, but since these ES are in synergy, this led to a convergence of interests that in turn led to a consensus. This consensus can also be seen as a consensus between the first four types of discourses that we have identified, which all wanted to maintain livestock farming, but for different reasons. Finally, it is also a synergy between the interests of local stakeholders and the interests of society as a whole, for which open landscapes biodiversity is preserved. This justifies the investment of public money to implement actions to support local livestock farmers. We can see how the notion of agricultural multifunctionality was locally socially-constructed and negotiated, and how the local discourses, and the social and institutional interplays mutually shaped each other in this process. It is clear that the emergence of a dominant discourse based on the idea of multifunctional agriculture has impacted the local action arenas and institutions, and has enabled the concrete implementation of actions that were successful to support livestock farming. Vice versa, the social interactions and institutions have shaped the discourses, which increasingly integrated the ideas of agricultural multifunctionality. This has led to changes in local people's discourses and, to a certain extent, in their representations. Several farmers said that the Natura 2000 process increased their awareness of the positive impacts of their practices on the environment. Some of them not only accept their environmental role, but also claimed it with a sense of pride: “I am a farmer doing environmental excellence” (Livestock farmer, 2012). In response to the rise of agri-environmental policies, the

4.2.2. Behind the consensus on the need to maintain open landscapes: diverging views on the means to achieve it The implementation of concrete actions undertaken to maintain open landscapes required collaboration between ES providers and intermediaries, including: the groups of farmers exploiting common pastures and receiving collective agri-environmental subsidies, the shepherds hired by these groups to look after the livestock, the managers of the Natura 2000 sites, the pastoral advisors providing technical advice and facilitating group discussions, and the elected representatives of the local collectives owning the common land and funding infrastructure. Farmers and shepherds are considered as direct ES providers, whilst advisors, Natura 2000 managers, and elected representatives are intermediary stakeholders that indirectly contribute to ES provision (Fig. 1). While these stakeholders all had a common goal, tensions between them arose in the concrete implementation of actions. These tensions crystallized around the hosting of external livestock on the common pastures. The local elected representatives considered that the local farmers did not take good care of the mountain, because they had allowed the bush and woodland to take over the grassland, which 40

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potentially lead to actions undermining the viability of local farms.

threatened the attractiveness of the valley for tourism. Together with the Natura 2000 site managers, they wanted to increase the number of external livestock, namely the livestock owned by non-local farmers living outside the valley who pay an access to the summer pastures. Local farmers and shepherds were not in favour of this option, fearing for a lack of grass in the good pastures and contamination of their livestock by infectious disease. Once more, a study conducted by the pastoral advisors helped ease the tensions. This study suggested that local infrastructure was not adapted to local farmers' needs. The municipality decided to support them and built several new huts and paths. The local farmers benefited from the new infrastructure, but in exchange they had to accept an increase in the number of external livestock. “They build us four huts within two years … We cannot say that they did not listen to us. They do everything right, but after in return they ask me to increase the livestock in the mountain so that the huts are not made for nothing” (Livestock farmer, 2013). This is an interesting illustration of the tensions that lie behind the apparent consensus on the multifunctionality of livestock farming. These tensions arise from the fact that these people do not want to maintain livestock farming for the same reasons. On the one side, the Type B and D discourses have an instrumental vision of livestock farming. They primarily aim at maintaining open landscapes for tourism economy and biodiversity. For that purpose, they need livestock grazing, but not necessarily local livestock farmers – even though this is a rather extreme statement that is rarely voiced this way. On the other side, the Type A and C discourses want to maintain local livestock farmers and their livelihoods. This is also an illustration of the power imbalance between local elected representatives and local farmers. The power held by the former has two main sources. Firstly, the local authorities have the capacity to invest in infrastructure. Secondly, they own the land of the common pastures. Even if the exploitation of the land is theoretically within the responsibility of the group of farmers, as a farmer said, “the boss, in the end, is the one who owns the land!” (Livestock farmer, 2013). One of the sources of power held by the livestock farmers is that they are the ones who maintain the landscape. They know they cannot be replaced by machines. There are therefore both strategic and symbolic dimensions in the tensions around the hosting of external livestock. If the local farmers can be replaced by external livestock, they lose a source of power in the negotiations with local authorities. Another illustration of the existence of tensions behind the apparent consensus is the conflict between farmers and elected representatives regarding the increasing number of building permits that are granted by the elected representatives on former arable land. Indeed, in the local dominant consensus, there is a strong narrative around the synergy between livestock farming and tourism: farming shapes attractive landscapes for tourism, and vice versa, tourism provides additional incomes for pluri-active farmers. However, behind this claimed synergy, lies a strong antagonism. The hay meadows in the bottom of the valley have been increasingly replaced by tourist residences. This is a major problem for the economic viability of local farmers, who suffer from hay scarcity, and must buy or grow their hay outside the valley. This also contributes to the decrease of time and energy that local farmers can spend in maintaining the landscape in their own valley, which can be seen as a counter-effect to the policy of the local authorities. This process highlights the ambiguity of the discourses shared by the locally elected representatives. Livestock farming is central to their narrative, but their priority is the economic dynamism of the valley: “In each meeting they say “we need farmers!” But they don't really listen to us” (Livestock farmer, 2013). We see again here that behind the consensus to maintain livestock farming, there is a tension between people who want to maintain livestock farming for different reasons, with a divide between those who want to maintain the livelihood of the livestock farmers, and those with an instrumental vision of livestock farming. The case of the building permits highlights that the latter viewpoint could

4.2.3. A consensus that excluded a voice: the taboo of the rewilding scenario The consensus described in section 4.2.1 relied on a perceived synergy between local and public interests, the latter being the conservation of biodiversity of open habitats of community importance. This synergy was, however, questioned by some conservationists: “I have heard feedbacks from conservationists who said “ah, Natura 2000, they actually used it to support livestock farming” (Conservationist, 2013). The interviewed conservationist referred here to other conservationists (type E) who criticised the focus of Natura 2000 on the biodiversity of open ecosystems and suggested that the decline of livestock farming could be an opportunity to recover the biodiversity of forest ecosystems. In terms of ES, there is an antagonism between the ES provided by open and forest ecosystems, leading to a conflict of interest between their respective beneficiaries (Fig. 1). Since society as a whole is considered to be the main beneficiary of the existence value of biodiversity, this raises the question of which type of biodiversity should be prioritised in the public interest. However, this Type E discourse is a taboo in the local decisionmaking arenas. It was indeed neither voiced nor heard in the working groups and steering committees of the Natura 2000 site. And yet, it seems that the process aimed at being collaborative and to include a diversity of perspectives. One of the interviewed conservationists who played a key role in the studied Natura 2000 site considered that these people should have talked when they were given the chance: “We gave everyone the opportunity to speak, they had to take it, in the working groups, in the steering committees, everyone was represented and the people who said nothing, they cannot say that we did not listen to them. They had to talk” (Conservationist, 2013). There are several possible interpretations of this phenomenon. Firstly, the Type E discourse is in opposition with the views of the majority of local people and can be interpreted as giving up on the local efforts to maintain a social fabric and economic vitality in the valley. It obviously requires strength and motivation to voice such controversial view. Secondly, power relations likely also played a role. The conservationists and managers of the Natura 2000 site had not actually had much choice: faced with the initial strong rejection of the scheme and the coalition of local actors in favour of open landscapes, they had no regulatory power at their disposal to impose measures that would have put the focus on the value of shrub and forest ecosystems. Thirdly, some conservationists expressed their difficulties related to the lack of clear conservation objectives and biodiversity indicators: “We are not even able to do quantification. What do we do? Preserve species? Ecosystems? On which indicators do we base our decisions?” (Conservationist, 2013). In this unclear context, it was also a pragmatic choice to focus on objectives that were aligned with the interests of local actors. However, some conservationists also explicitly acknowledged that their position in favour of grasslands habitats corresponded to a personal commitment and not necessarily to a choice based on the objective superiority of grasslands and moorlands over forest ecosystems. “I understand that some people might like a wild mountain, without animals, the forest. I defend the grass! I do not say that it is an absolute value. That's more of a personal commitment” (Conservationist, 2013). Finally, the emergence of this local taboo around the idea that farmland abandonment could be worthwhile in terms of biodiversity might also be related to the context of the conflict between naturalists and livestock farmers regarding the reintroduction of Eurasian brown bears (Ursus arctos arctos) in the Pyrénées. This conflict has indeed probably reinforced the taboo, since any discourse that appears to be a pro-bear discourse is strongly rejected locally. On the other hand, the existence of a taboo doesn't help solve the conflict. Because it is a taboo, it is little discussed in local decision-making arenas. It is considered by many local people as a fight between “us and them”, where ‘us’ are the local people and ‘them’ are the urban conservationists, and the environmental national and European policies. 41

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a symbiotic relationship between the grassland, the animals, and the shepherd. Thinking in terms of ES requires addressing conceptual questions like: should we consider the animal as part of an animalgrassland ecosystem, or as part of a symbiotic shepherd-animal team that shapes and uses a grassland ecosystem (which we did in this study)? While such questions are important to address (Lamarque et al., 2011a), they illustrate the fact that the ES concept doesn't fit easily with most local people's representations. The fact that people think more spontaneously in terms of MFA than in terms of ES should also be attributed to the long history of agricultural policies based on MFA. As we have seen in this study, people have appropriated and internalized this idea. The same might happen with the ES concept in the future.

Overall, our analysis suggests that the social construction of a consensus around the multifunctionality of livestock farming in the local decision-making arenas aligned with the social construction of a local taboo around the idea that farmland abandonment might be potentially interesting in terms of biodiversity. We called it the taboo of a rewilding scenario. 5. Discussion: the respective heuristic values and policy implications of MFA and ES We made the choice in this study to use an ES lens to decipher the social construction mechanisms related to the multifunctionality of agriculture (MFA). Incorporating the two concepts of ES and MFA, this study allows us to discuss their respective interests, limits, and implications. This discussion section is organised as follows. Firstly, we come back on the interests and limits of the chosen conceptual framework, and we discuss the respective heuristic values of ES and MFA as conceptual lenses to study interactions between agriculture, environment and society. Secondly, we discuss the normative dimensions and policy implications of these concepts for the future of mountain farming and rural areas.

5.2. Policy implications of ES and MFA paradigms: the possible futures of mountain farming In the previous section, we have discussed the interests and limits of ES and MFA as conceptual lenses to study discourses on rural changes. We shall now discuss their normative implications in terms of policy and management options regarding the future of mountain farming. In particular, we will critically discuss the implications of different ways to comprehend ES and MFA, since both concepts are open to multiple interpretations. To do so, we draw a parallel between our empirical results on the competing visions of mountain farming, and the debates in the literature about the normative implications of different ES and MFA paradigms (Marsden and Sonnino, 2008; Tilzey, 2006; Wilson, 2008). Firstly, there is the local opposition between the visions that wish to maintain agriculture at the centre of rural development and the more instrumental visions of agriculture. We have seen that the local consensus on the need to maintain livestock farming has been accompanied by a dominance of narratives justifying livestock farming in instrumental terms, paradoxically leading to at times an ineffective support of livestock farming. Although some actors do want to maintain livestock farming for its intrinsic values, our discourse analysis has shown that the key actors with a strong influence in the negotiations were mostly interested in the ES provided by the landscapes shaped by grazing. As a result, although livestock farming is central to the discourses of the powerful elected representatives, supporting local livestock farmers is not always a priority in their concrete actions when there are trade-offs and choices to make, especially in the case of trade-offs with tourism economy. These local processes of appropriation, negotiation, and the social construction of the MFA concept echoes debates in scientific and political arenas between competing paradigms of MFA and ES. As noted in the introduction of this paper, in the MFA paradigm based on rural development and agro-ecology, agriculture remains at the centre of any project on land-use management (Marsden and Sonnino, 2008). In terms of policy, in this paradigm, the MFA becomes a tool for placebased rural development, where the social, ecological, cultural and economic functions of agriculture are integrated in local and regional development. Tilzey (2006) adds a distinction here between counterhegemonic and income support paradigms. The first one, which was not observed in our case study, corresponds to the strongest definitions of MFA (Tilzey, 2006; Wilson, 2008), i.e. a radical path to counter the hegemony of capitalist forms of agriculture, echoing the most political definitions of agroecology and food sovereignty, which exclude support from state policies (Altieri and Toledo, 2011). In the income support paradigm, which clearly resonates with the discourses observed in our case study, MFA is conceived as a way to financially support farms which lack competitive capacity in international markets, due to their small size and/or topographic constraints (Tilzey, 2006). In both paradigms, the goal is to support farmers and to maintain agriculture at the centre of rural development. In contrast, post-productivism emphasises the services provided by the rural landscapes for society, and agriculture is not necessarily a central part of this 'rural'. This paradigm corresponds to what Tilzey (2006) labelled ‘embedded’ neoliberalism,

5.1. Heuristic values of ES and MFA concepts The two concepts of ES and MFA emerged and gained importance in parallel, but are rooted in different scientific disciplines. The concept of MFA is anchored in the rural social sciences (McCarthy, 2005), while the ES notion was born from an alliance between ecology and economy (Gómez-Baggethun et al., 2010). While these two concepts and their diverse branches share many features, they rely on different assumptions, and they can lead to different understandings of agricultural and rural changes (Bonnal et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2015; Wynne-Jones, 2013). As a conceptual lens, and compared to the MFA, the ES concept displaces agriculture from its central position. It allows therefore a more thorough analysis of the discourses of people who emphasize the negative impacts of agriculture, or who envision scenarios of a rural space with less or without agricultural activity. Moreover, compared to the MFA concept, the ES concept naturally leads one to think in terms of stakeholders, with the identification of ES providers and beneficiaries. Because it gives the same attention to ES related to agriculture as to other sectors, such as tourism or biodiversity conservation, the ES concept also enables the integration of a larger range of sectors and stakeholders in an area, and see how they interact. This added-value of the ES concept was particularly remarkable in the conceptual framework we adopted, since it focused on social interdependencies related to ES dynamics (Barnaud et al., 2018). It might therefore not be true for other ES approaches found in the literature. However, the ES concept also presents several conceptual weaknesses in order to analyze representations of relationships between agriculture, society and environment. Firstly, in our interviews, the ES concept was less closely aligned to local people's representations than the MFA concept. A study of Lamarque et al. (2011b) using the ES concept to study local stakeholders' representations in a mountainous agro-pastoral system led to the same observation. During our interviews, people spontaneously listed the multiple functions of livestock farming. Conversely, except for a few interviewees who had an instrumental vision of nature that fitted well with the ES concept, it was quite difficult for most of the interviewees to spontaneously think about the range of benefits they get from nature. This kind of information was obtained indirectly by analyzing the interviewees' discourses. Moreover, the MFA concept corresponds to a more integrated vision of human-nature interactions. The ES concept sometimes leads to artificially separate social and ecological elements that are inherently interwoven with each other in people's representations. This is especially true in the case of extensive livestock farming that is often described as 42

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benefit from forest regeneration, as well as benefits in terms of carbon sequestration and recreation. This concept of rewilding is now spreading in Western Europe with increasing numbers of rewilding projects, sometimes associated with reintroductions of species of big predators. It is, however, a very controversial and divisive idea (Bauer et al., 2009; Deary and Warren, 2017; Wynne-Jones et al., 2018), questioning the very place of humankind in ecosystems (Jørgensen, 2015).

which recognizes that certain forms of farming generate positive externalities, but which considers that farming is only contingently rather than necessarily required for the delivery of these beneficial environmental outcomes. It corresponds to the instrumental visions of livestock farming that we observed in our case study. In terms of concepts, this paradigm prompts a shift from the idea of multifunctionality of agriculture to the idea of multifunctionality of agro-ecosystems, rural landscapes or countryside (Fleskens et al., 2009; Simoncini, 2009). In terms of policy, it is associated with agri-environmental subsidies, and is congruent with ES approaches based on payments for ES which reward farmers for their efforts in providing ES such as water quality, soil conservation, or biodiversity preservation. There have been many debates and fears raised regarding the idea that the ES concept might lead to a commodification of nature (Gómez-Baggethun and Ruiz-Pérez, 2011). In the case of agri-environmental policies, it seems that the ES concept is mainly facilitating a shift towards the development of resultbased approaches, where farmers are not paid to compensate the costs of changing their farming practices, but for the effective provision of environmental benefits. Simoncini (2009) suggests that a “shift of focus, from the multifunctional character of agriculture to that of agro-ecosystem, could overcome the difficulties in assessing the environmental benefits of the majority of the current agri-environmental programs” (p. 154). Although these schemes are used to support farmers financially, this corresponds to an instrumental vision of agriculture, with potentially negative consequences for farmers as illustrated by our case study. In this vision, agriculture loses its centrality. Some PES in Central America for example give payments to farmers in exchange for a conversion of their farm land into forestry plantations, for carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation purposes (Corbera et al., 2007). This can be seen as an extreme version of post-productivism, a third paradigm in which the focus is on the conservation and/or recreational functions of rural areas, for the benefit of the wider society, especially the people living in the cities. This echoes what Tilzey (2006) named the “radical neoliberal” discourse, which denies the “exceptionalism” of agriculture. This third paradigm echoes the last type of discourse we have encountered in our study, which is the taboo idea that farmland abandonment might be worthwhile in terms of biodiversity. As described, some conservationists considered that this idea was not taken into account in the implementation of the Natura 2000 scheme, which has in the end served the interests of agriculture more than biodiversity. Whilst such an idea was still a taboo in local decision-making arenas for land-use management in the studied valley when we conducted interviews, it echoes recent academic controversies among ecological scientists on the effects of farmland abandonment on biodiversity. Two main schools of thought are traditionally distinguished in landscape ecology: the American one and the European one (Otero et al., 2015). The first sees farmland abandonment as an opportunity for ecosystems recovery and biodiversity conservation. Forest transition is a common framework under this paradigm that considers that forest expansion on abandoned marginal farmland is a sign of economic development, which enables the recovery of natural ecosystems (Mather, 1992 in Otero et al., 2015). Conversely, the European school of landscape ecologists sees land abandonment and spontaneous reforestation as a threat to biodiversity, because of landscape homogenization, and the loss of open-habitat species of conservation value (MacDonald et al., 2000). There are cultural and historical reasons behind this school of thought. In Europe, most rural landscapes have been shaped by humans for thousands of years, leading to a traditional agricultural landscape comprised of a land-use mosaic, and that European landscape ecologists and agri-environmental policies have urged to maintain until now. However, there is an emerging movement among European scholars that highlights the high social cost of these agri-environmental subsidies, and invites policy-makers to consider farmland abandonment in European remote areas as an opportunity for “rewilding” ecosystems (Navarro and Pereira, 2012). They identify numerous species that could

5.3. Conclusion To conclude, we suggest that whether we talk about multifunctionality of agriculture, multifunctionality of landscapes, agroecology, ecosystem services, landscape services (Termorshuizen and Opdam, 2009) or nature's contributions to people (Pascual et al., 2017), any concept is socially-constructed within complex relationships between scientists, politics and society. Whilst they hold different internal meanings and values, they can be appropriated and reconstructed differently in different arenas, serving sometimes other purposes than their initial conceptualisation. Moreover, each concept highlights specific dimensions of reality, and hides others. Nonetheless, some concepts are more integrative than others. For example, Holmes suggests to characterise the multifunctional transition in rural areas as “a shift from the formerly dominant production goals towards a more complex, contested, variable mix of production, consumption and protection goals” (p. 142–143) (Holmes, 2006). However, none of the existing concepts or frameworks are able to integrate the existing diversity of social representations and values. It is therefore necessary to maintain a multiplicity of concepts. More importantly, there is a need to support dialogue between citizens, scientists and policy makers working with these different concepts. It is not the role of the scientists alone to decide which concepts should prevail, because this entails the future of rural spaces, which is essentially a social and political choice. Our study illustrates that there are people with highly competing views who don't understand each other, because their visions are based on very different values. This highlights the necessity of more dialogue and collaboration between these groups, and also among the different academic communities, and the diverse policy sectors, to avoid implementing contradictory policies at the local level. Policies should instead be co-designed to ensure that they are are as adaptive, negotiable and integrative as possible.

Declaration of competing interest None.

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all interviewees for their time and contributions. We are also grateful to Lucie Theil, Ludovic Noel, Caroline Mourrut and Mathilde Cherbuin who co-conducted large parts of the interviews, Corinne Eychenne and other members of the Secoco project team for valuable discussions, Anke Fischer for providing useful comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and Annie McKee for kindly providing English edition of the manuscript. This study was part of the Secoco project on "Ecosystem Services and Collective Action" (2015-2018, coordinated by the first author) funded by the INRA Metaprogram Ecoserv. Exploratory interviews were funded by the labex SMS (Structuration des Mondes Sociaux) of the University of Toulouse. Finally, the manuscript was written during a one year stay of the first author as a visiting scholar at the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences (SEGS) Group, at the James Hutton Institute, in Aberdeen, Scotland, as an outgoing fellow funded by the AgreenSkill+ program. 43

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