April 2003
abstract
Responsabilité & Environnement
LES RISQUES EN ENTREPRISE ET EN COLLECTIVITE L'ENVIRONNEMENT DANS L'AGRICULTURE DE DEMAIN
Issue 30
Editorial
By Dominique DRON
Responsable éditoriale de Responsabilité & Environnement
A few thoughts about legislative changes introduced by the bill of law on preventing technological risks
By Jean-Philippe Olier
Président de la commission "Risques" de l'Association française des ingénieurs et techniciens de l'environnement - Afite
Various parties were waiting for the bill of law on preventing technological risks. The French association of environmental engineers and technicians closely followed the drafting of this bill, which should help to link industrialization and urbanization by providing the means for adapting to the requirements of risk management. Some reactions to the bill present an overall positive assessment and point to its modernized vision of public risk management and its bold, innovative measures. They also make suggestions about, for example, the necessary changes to be made in studying danger. And they formulate reserves about: preferring a clear, accessible, global objective to an unlimited general one; switching from a "logic of means" to a "logic of objectives"; reforming compensation for victims; and making measures about personnel safety more understandable.
Environmental law: Penal risk management in the firm
By Bertrand Burg
Avocat à la Cour,
Growing concern about the environment in French society has recently led to penalizing infringements of environmental laws when illegal behaviors are condemned or natural environments are damaged. This penalization of business potentially threatens all heads of plants, establishments and firms. Setting aside the case of overtly deviant behavior, the issue is not penal risks but the consequences of industrial risks in court. These consequences can be managed in advance if the juristic or natural person being held potentially liable shows determination and if a transactional solution is sought for.
The Chamonix Valley, a risk laboratory
By Michel Charlet
The internationally famous Chamonix Valley attracts an ever increasing number of skiers and mountain-climbers. Via the Mont-Blanc tunnel, it also provides access between France and Italy. With its steep slopes and harsh climate, this exceptionally beautiful site concentrates natural as well as human risks (such as avalanches and flooding, on the one hand, and sporting and road accidents on the other) that turn it into a real-life "risk laboratory". Michel Charlet, the mayor of this Alpine town for twenty years now, comments on several problem areas: avalanches, flooding, mountain rescue operations, management of the international tunnel and the question of the level relevant for defining a common interest.
Farming versus the environment
By Amédée Mollard, Vincent Chatellier, Jean-Marie Codron, Pierre Dupraz, Florence Jacquet
A case of group consultancy conducted by the French National Institute of Agricultural Research (INRA) on the relations between farming and the environment in three major systems of production (large-surface farming, cattle and fruit) is presented. Following this work, a group of economists analyzed the results, brought to light the common points and differences in the socioeconomic aspects of these three systems, and introduced a few crosscutting factors for analyzing the relations between farming and the environment. The diagnosis herein is both pessimistic and carefully balanced. The economic solutions for improving the aforementioned relations in the framework of existing markets and public farm policies are analyzed. A debate opens in a context that is changing fast both internationally (given the expiration, toward 2004, of the WTO clause that has ensured "agricultural peace") and in the EU (given the new member-states coming from central Europe).
Indicators, tools for managing the water supply in France and Brazil: Beyond the contrasts, a common goal
By Pereira Magalhães jr, Antônio
Professeur au département de géographie de l'université fédérale de Minas Gerais, doctorant au Centre de développement durable de l'Université de Brasilia ; doctorant invité au Latts -Laboratoire techniques, territoires et sociétés
The uses of indicators for managing the water supply are compared in the two quite different historical and socioeconomic contexts of Brazil and France. In Brazil, the recent national system of water supply management needs decision-making tools since new parties (such as water basin committees and water agencies) and new managerial instruments have been created. Paradoxically, the lack of data and information has made indicators even more useful. In France, the experience acquired by more than thirty years of water basin management at the central level has improved indicators and uses of them. This experience can serve as a framework for thinking about the Brazilian case. Despite differences at various levels between the two countries, we observe a common "core" of water management priorities. The current "sustainable development era" seems to put the same goals in perspective.