The emergence of an Alpine environmental expertise

Abstract

This article reports on the findings of research carried out on conflicts concerning major transport infrastructure projects in the Southern Alps. These conflicts were analyzed as delineating the gradual emergence of an environmental expertise network. Rather than fighting the administration and/or the transport operator in the field of transport, some opponents try to relocate the expertise into the field of the environment so as to catch the experts in the different administrations off guard. This resulting Alpine environmental expertise is based on the constitution of trans‐Alpine associative networks and the emergence of a constantly more supportive and structuring notion: sustainable development. In this article, we analyze the manner in which this notion is diffused and how it gradually builds up its definition in the course of action. The Alpine Agreement plays a major role in this operationalization: it constitutes a multilateral semantic point of reference for a variable Alpine policy and has influenced both major trans‐Alpine associative networks and official French land transport policy.

Notes

Directive no. 92‐11 of 15 December 1992 on guiding major national infrastructure projects, and named ‘Bianco’ after the Minister for Equipment, Housing and Transport at the time. This was the first legislative text officially to introduce a public debate on fundamental principles—‘a phase of debate on economic and social interests before the launch of public surveys’—and to establish a new third actor in the process—‘a monitoring committee [which] will guarantee that information provided to the public is relevant and that debates are open and pluralist’.

Michel Rousselot is a member of the general civil engineering committee (Conseil Général des Ponts et Chaussées). The Minister of Provision's inspection authority is responsible for overall supervision. It ensures that legislative texts, regulations and ministerial directives are implemented, advises the various service departments and monitors the regularity, efficiency and quality of their action in all the Ministry's areas of competence. Michel Rousselont's speech has been translated into English.

M. Rousselot, intervention in the course of the INRETS research seminar ‘Analyse et évaluation des politiques de transport’, 9 February 1994–13 April 1995, session on 17 November 1994: ‘Les stratégies d’expertise dans l'évaluation'.

This article is based on research financed by the Ministry of Transport (PREDIT) and examined the meaning of conflicts concerning major transport infrastructure projects (especially motorways) in the Southern Alps. We analyzed these in light of the gradual establishment of a network of environmental expertise. See Lolive and Tricot (2000).

For an analysis of this concept and the reframing of development procedures it generates, see Berdoulay and Soubeyran (1996).

See Faure et al. (1995). Policy analysis questions public action, its determinants, purposes, procedures and consequences. This theory, which originated in the USA, has often been construed on the basis of decision processes that are defined as being more or less rational and relatively linear. This explains why adjusting this concept to the French environment has been accompanied by attempts to dissociate the model selected for public action. One of these attempts is the guiding principle concept developed to justify public policies as being the intellectual production of universal views on society. Like other efforts, this concept aims to re‐introduce a cognitive dimension and to take into account the complexity of intellectual constructions that prevail during the emergence, verification and implementation of a policy. However, consistent with Bruno Jobert's view, we use this concept to ‘justify the permanent process of world reinterpretation, of changes of course in political rhetoric, and of reconstruction of institutional standards’. To introduce a symmetrical approach to administrative and NGO practices without dissociating them, we expand the category of public action analysis to include NGO activities.

In several articles, geographer Olivier Soubeyran describes action modalities in the prospective field—see Soubeyran (1994). We have included his propositions in our work.

See the analysis carried out by the Centre de Sociologie de l'Innovation of the Ecole des Mines de Paris, especially that of Callon (1986).

The restricting character of indicators is confirmed by the objectives they support, thus being what sociologist Laurent Thévenot calls ‘the equipment’, their formation within a template that gives them a restricting character. See Thévenot (1985).

‘The Contracting Parties shall pursue a comprehensive policy for the preservation and protection of the Alps by applying the principles of prevention, payment by the polluter (the ‘polluter pays’ principle) and cooperation … and through the prudent and sustained use of resources.’ The Framework Agreement recommends economic use of land, drastic reduction in pollutant emissions, conservation of the quality of water used in hydroelectric plants, protection of nature and the countryside, ‘greener’ forestry management, reductions in nuisance caused by transport and even limits to tourist activities that are prejudicial to the environment, particularly by demarcation of areas declared to be non‐developable.

Article 11 on road transport states: ‘The contracting parties shall abstain from constructing any new major roads for trans‐Alpine traffic. Major road projects for intra‐alpine traffic may be put into application if … [followed by four conditions].’

Article 12 on air transport states: ‘The contracting parties agree to improve public transport systems for connecting airports on the perimeter of the Alps to different Alpine areas so as to meet transport requirements without increasing environmental nuisance. In this context, contracting parties shall, wherever possible, limit the number of airports to be built and any significant increase in the size of any airports that already exist in the Alpine zone.’

‘Taking the objectives of this protocol into consideration, contracting parties shall evaluate any effects of new tourist installations on traffic and, if needs be, take preventive or compensatory measures to attain the objectives contained in the present protocol and any other protocols. In any such case, priority will be given to means of public transport.’

‘The contracting parties shall give their support to creating and maintaining low traffic and no‐traffic areas that exclude automobiles from certain tourist areas and to taking measures for promoting transport for tourists who do not possess automobiles.’

The Alpine Initiative for the protection of the Alpine regions launched a successful referendum in Switzerland effecting a halt to road infrastructure investment in order to protect the Alpine landscape.

The RPLP (fees on heavy‐duty vehicles) is an ‘environmentally friendly’ tax which targets heavy commercial vehicles for each kilometre they drive. With regard to infrastructure costs, the RPLP advocates taking into account environmental costs and other external costs not covered in road traffic. The RPLP was voted on in Switzerland on 27 September 1998 following the launch of a campaign by the Alpine Initiative, Greenpeace, SEV (a Swiss trade union for transport workers), the USS (a Swiss trade union), and the ATE (Association for Transport and Environment). The RPLP came into force in Switzerland, as well as in the principality of Liechtenstein, on 1 January 2002 and applies to both Swiss and non‐Swiss vehicles. Goods vehicles with a gross weight of over 3.5 tonnes pay this tax for the entire public road network. It is calculated on the basis of the gross weight and multiplied by the number of kilometres covered in accordance with a rate of taxation that depends on the vehicle's emission classification. Currently, ITE is launching an international petition to submit the RPLP to the European Parliament, i.e. to have the RPLP implemented in all EU countries.

On this classification of the NGOs in relation to the interests they defend, see Lascoumes (1994).

In their book, the sociologists Boltanski and Thévenot (1991) analyse the different legitimacy principles currently used in our modern democracies. The authors call these different forms of legitimacy ‘cities’—civic, industrial, domestic, merchant‐inspired, opinion related. To the six already‐evaluated cities, a seventh can be added which is currently being elaborated—the green city or ecological justification.

See the following two studies: Barnier and Soubeyran (1995) and Thévenot (1996).

Published in four languages (French, Italian, German and Slovenian), this 472‐page report brings together articles from 70 well‐known scientists and authors.

The Legrand report (named after the senior official who presided over the working group responsible for drawing up the report) was appointed by the Minister for Equipment, Housing, Transport and Shipping, Mr Besson, and the Minister for National Planning and Development, Mr Chérèque, in March 1991.

In 1993, a new report (the Besson report), prepared together with Catherine Comoli, a prefect in charge of a public‐service working group, was appointed by the ex‐Minister of Transport Jean‐Louis Bianco, who was then mayor of Chambery. The terms of the report are approximately the same as those of the Legrand report. As was the case in the previous report, the Alps were considered an obstacle for economic development. The ‘obstacle’ was even dramatized to the point of comparing it to the Iron Curtain: The Alps are perhaps remarkably beautiful, but these high mountains, symbols of liberty and consensus, are paradoxically one of the last menaces to European unity and integration. They form a huge geographical ‘dead‐end’ for European transport […]. The Single market opens up perspectives of completely free north/south movement, but only up to a certain point, because everything seizes up on reaching the Alps, a barrier, which, in the words of certain people could slow down freedom of movement as much as the iron curtain in its time. (Besson report, p. 2)