Whether you're a citizen, an agricultural professional, a development worker, a scientist or a student, we're all concerned by the issues surrounding agriculture and food. The aim of this agroecology dictionary is to inform and raise awareness of the challenges of agroecology to “produce differently” by rethinking production systems, and more broadly, food systems. Each definition has been written by researchers, sometimes in co-construction with students, and is complemented by easily accessible online bibliographical references for more in-depth study of the subject. A genuine educational tool, this dictionary establishes a frame of reference for citizens, farmers, development players, teachers, scientists... It is an essential tool for dialogue between agriculture and society, and can be used by all those wishing to commit to the agro-ecological transition and help practices evolve.

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Faced with the many challenges of the 21st century, livestock farming in Mediterranean and tropical zones is under considerable pressure. Contested in some areas, weakened by unstable markets and climate change, ruminant breeders suffer from the pressure exerted on pastures by other land users. Yet grazing livestock maintains deep-rooted links with the land, helping to forge its identity. Through twelve case studies, this book sheds light on these tensions in a variety of contexts, from Reunion Island to Corsica, via Minervois, India, Vietnam, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Chad, Tunisia and Amazonia. Using innovative methods, the book offers a fresh look at the links between livestock farming and territories. First, it presents tools for assessing the multiple roles of livestock farming. It then proposes grids for analyzing modes of governance in this activity. Finally, it shows how research can support local players in the transition to sustainable and equitable resource management. Aimed at professionals and researchers alike, this book provides keys for reading and acting on the controversies that are shaking up the world of livestock farming.

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Dear Colleagues, Zoological institutions contribute a large amount of fundamental and applied knowledge on a diverse array of animal species. Despite this significant contribution, research conducted within zoos or other captive wildlife facilities has historically been skewed toward charismatic mammals, which comprise only a small proportion of the species that are held in captive collections. Modern zoos play an important role in animal welfare, conservation, and environmental education; therefore, this shortfall in knowledge may have large, unseen, and negative impacts on these “forgotten species”. Hypothesis-driven, experimental research plays a key role in filling these knowledge gaps; however, other avenues of data collection exist which may be equally important. These include observational data (collected without experimental interventions), operational data (data collected within the general management activities of a facility), and incidental data (data collected for one purpose which may reveal further important information when explored in more detail). These unpublished datasets may provide fundamental information on species for which comparatively little is known.

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The global food system faces three major challenges: ensuring food security, preserving the environment, and improving human health. Livestock farming, at the intersection of these issues, plays a central role. However, changes in diets, population growth, and landscape transformations differ across regions of the world. These dynamics raise questions about the place of livestock farming in different territories, its form, its impacts, and the services it can provide. How can we anticipate these transformations and assess their consequences? This book presents a variety of forward-looking approaches carried out in different contexts (in both the North and South) and at different scales (from local to global). It explores the link between qualitative methods of (co-)constructing scenarios and quantitative approaches to modeling and evaluation. The book also examines the temporal sequence of the foresight-modeling-evaluation cycle, the identification of key variables, the use of data, and the role of stakeholders in the process, particularly with regard to the appropriation of results to guide decisions. This book is the result of a research school organized by INRAE and CIRAD as part of the Macro-Livestock-Environment Joint Technology Network (RMT MAELE). It is aimed at the scientific community engaged in interdisciplinary approaches. It will also be of interest to stakeholders in agriculture, the environment, and food, as well as those involved in the sustainable development of agricultural areas.

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The Unnaming of Aliass performs a paradoxical quest for wildly “untold” stories in the company of one special donkey companion, a femammal of the species Equus asinus and, significantly, a registered “American Spotted Ass.” Beast of burden that she is, this inscrutable companion helped carry a ridiculous load of human longings and quandaries into a maze of hot, harrowing miles, across the US South from Mississippi to Virginia, in the summer of 2002 -- all the while carrying her own onerous and unreckoned burdens and histories. Over two decades, the original journey evolved -- from the cracking-open of a quasi-Western novel-that-never-was by an implosive pun, into an ongoing philosophical and assthetic adventure: a hybrid roadside- and barnyard-based living-art practice, wherein “Aliass” un/names something much harder to grasp than the body of a lovely little ass: protagonist, setting, and traditional Western narratives turn inside-out around this “name-that-ain’t.” Through a deeply dug-in questioning of its own authorial assumptions, The Unnaming of Aliass makes space for untold autobiographies and bright dusty lacunae, tracing ineffable tales through the tangled shapes and shadows that interweave in any environment.

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