The imbizo was introduced in the light of the problems associated with indirect democracy, as well as attempts to bring democracy closer to the people in ways with which they are more familiar. The problem of the study was approached by putting the imbizo in perspective. Hence, a cybernetics model was used with the two information systems, namely the GCIS and the spider-web. They were used to describe the workings of the imbizo in the political system. A mixed method using both the quantitative and qualitative approaches investigated the problem by surveying students‟ understanding of the imbizo. A case study regarding service delivery and public participation was conducted at villages where the imbizo had been held. Generally, findings confirm the imbizo’s role as an instrument to enhance service delivery. The findings have some far-reaching implications for democracy: Unlike indirect democracy, the imbizo “takes the government closer to the people” through unmediated engagement of the people in order to realise direct democracy and accountability. / M.A. (Politics) / Political Science

This dissertation examines the democratic participation in the formulation of the communal land policy in Namibia. The degree to which Government institutions allow public participation, cooperation with other sectors within government, and cooperate with other stakeholders such as Non-Governmental Organisations, is examined. Data were collected using questionnaires and interviews and literature research. The analysis of data integrated both qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Chapter One describes the background to the study, focusing on the history of democratic participation and land policies in Namibia. The literature review in Chapter Two gives a review of the relevant literature that exists on democracy, democratic participation and policymaking. Chapter Three provides a theoretical framework where the most important issues regarding policies relating to communal land were introduced. Chapter Four identified the tools and processes of conducting the study. Three regions in Namibia namely, Oshikoto, Hardap and Otjozondjupa were randomly selected to participate in this study. The findings of the study are discussed in Chapter Five and Chapter Six concludes the study. The study concluded that democratic participation in the formulation of the communal land policy in Namibia is very low. The major challenges that remain are to encourage public and inter-sectoral debate and to improve the ability of the relevant stakeholders to support development in Namibia and to clarify Namibia’s vision for democratic public participation. / Public Administration & Management / M. Tech. (Public Administration and Management)

行政部門委員會為政府內具有公共參與特質的合議制組織，來自社會層級的利害關係人被納入決策圈，並共同決定政策內容，作者稱之為委員會參與機制。此決策模式結合了社會與政府對公共參與的期待，並在世界各國廣泛使用。行政管理者宣稱可透過社會代表性的提升，提高政策的正當性與回應性；但實務上，委員會卻遭遇密室協商、激化對立、政治操弄等質疑。對此，本研究提出以下疑問：公共參與是否真能回應社會的政策需求？該如何具體評估參與績效？ 依據委員會的決策結構特質，作者由公共參與的理論視野探討代表性和回應性的因果機制，提供一套以委員會為主體的參與評估標準。代表性在理論上有形式與實質代表性兩個層次，共包含參與制度、議事行為與會議影響力三個面向；回應性則強調利害關係人對委員會回應需求的主觀評價，又分為民主程序與實質利益的需求回應能力兩類。參與概念落實在制度賦權和議事行為，應該會同時強化兩類回應性。在研究方法上，本文以全民健康保險委員會為分析案例：首先透過跨國比較，分析台灣、日本、韓國、加拿大以及德國在類似的審議機制中，如何建構委員會代表性的制度。依此基礎，再針對第一屆健保會的運作進行分析，透過利害關係人問卷、健保會會議記錄內容分析、深度訪談與焦點團體等方法，深入探討健保會之政策回應能力。 研究結果發現：一、委員會參與的制度賦權和正當性皆來自代議機關，尚無法取而代之。台灣健保會之形式代表性，在行政單位主導下仍偏好具有政治動員能力的團體，較忽略社會連帶或保障弱勢的價值。二、健保會在民主功能和實質結果兩個回應性面向的評價皆為正面，而民主程序的評價又優於後者。然而，相互理解的功能評價再高，卻未對實質回應性產生顯著影響。三、是否具有健保會席次並不影響回應性評估；但直接與會者以及實際參與愈積極者，卻反而對委員會回應利害關係人需求的能力抱持較悲觀的看法。最後，在程序面和實質面評價上最為顯著的因素為會議影響力，會議影響力愈大的團體，其回應性也就愈高。 總結上述來回答核心問題：參與是否會提高利害關係人的回應性？在極大化個體利益的動機下，參與制度和行為都只提供爭取權益的機會，不必然導致實質利益。再加上負擔參與成本以及競爭資源的政治現實，參與者進入體制後，反而對委員會的政策回應能力持質疑的態度。是故，會議影響力為關鍵因素，只有在參與過程中獲利愈多者，其回應性才有直接的正面作用；若忽略參與途徑和結果的連結以及權力互動，就過度簡化了參與的政治本質。基於此，行政管理者掌握了決策結構與行政資源，若想取得較佳的回應性評價，就必須在制度和過程面中平衡不同的社會力量，才能使委員會發揮多元參與的功能，而不只是優勢團體的工具。 / Governmental committees are a kind of public participatory mechanism, whereby policy stakeholders are incorporated in the decision making procedure and negotiate with each other to policy outcomes. This mechanism accords with the expectations of both society and government and is frequently used by executive branches all over the world. Ideally, social representativeness can strengthen legitimacy and thereby increase responsiveness. However, in practice, there have also been some criticisms of the committee mechanism, including black box decision making, conflict enlargement, and administrative manipulation. To response this debate, my study addresses whether this type of public participation is responsive to policy demands as well as how to substantially evaluate its effectiveness. Theoretically, participation has a positive impact on policy demands, I provide more precise analysis using the concepts of representativeness and responsiveness. The former refers to how interests are presented in the decision making process, including in both the formal and substantive dimension. The latter refers to the committee’s ability to respond to procedural and substantive demands from society. To illustrate the theoretical framework, the National Health Insurance Committee (NHIC) in Taiwan is taken as my case study. The empirical section is divided into two parts, Fist, I explore original guiding values and institutional design of five committees that emerged under different political-social contexts in Japan, South Korea, Canada, Germany and Taiwan. Based on the results of this comparison, the NHIC in Taiwan is my main topic in the second part. The participatory behavior of committee members and their evaluation of the NHIC system are discussed through the various research methods, such as interviews, focus groups, stakeholder surveys, and also context analysis of meeting minutes. Four results of the study are illustrated as follows: 1. Because the legitimacy of the committee mechanism is empowered by traditional representative authority (the elected legislative or executive branch), it serves a supplementary rather than substitutive function to the existing system. Especially in Taiwan, the administration prefers the advantaged groups more capable of mobilizing social supports over the vulnerable groups which may bring the values of social solidarity and justice into the decision-making of the committee. 2. Stakeholders positively appraised the NHIC’s responsive capacity, both in the procedural and substantive dimensions, with the former appraised more highly than the latter. However, a high level of communication functions had no impact on responsiveness. 3. The institutional variable has no impact on responsiveness. However, direct participation in meetings was associated with more pessimistic views of the NHIC when compared to the non-participators. In addition, the more actors were involved in the NHIC, the more negative their evaluations were. 4. The most significant variable for responsiveness is the decision influence of stakeholders. Does participation strengthen stakeholders’ responsiveness? Under the condition that individuals are motivated by interest maximization, while institutional design and participatory behavior seek to pursue individual interest, it may not always realize substantial benefits. Furthermore, after becoming institutional insiders, the costs of participation and the political reality of power competition will make stakeholders more skeptical about the responsiveness of committee mechanisms. In other words, whether participation can increase the stakeholders’ satisfaction mainly depends on the benefit they can obtain from it. Without taking into account the link between participatory approaches and results, as well as the interaction between various stakeholders, we cannot gain a full picture of the nature of policy participation. In terms of practical reforms, to increase performance responsiveness, administrators who control the structures and resources of the NHIC should incorporate different social forces and interests on the input and process dimensions. This will enable the committee mechanism to perform the function of pluralistic participation, rather than simply serving as a political tool for advantaged groups.

En se basant sur le principe organisationnel des deux types d’ensembles politiques rencontrés au Bénin, le but de cette recherche est d’explorer un ou des modèles conjoints, classiques et coutumiers, de participation en vue de promouvoir une démocratie participative plus proche des citoyens. Trois échelons spatiaux ont constitué le terrain de la recherche : l’Afrique, le Bénin centre et les milieux proches des anciennes royautés. La documentation et les données d’observations et d’entrevues ont été analysées par la démarche de théorisation ancrée et l’appréhension des phénomènes socio-spatiaux. Des quatre modèles originaux avec les critères endogènes d’appréciation de la participation mis en évidence et caractérisés dans les cultures du Bénin, deux, Togbésso-Hon-Togbassa et Daŋnou, émergent comme représentatifs des exigences d’une démocratie avec des formes territorialisées de la participation. La mise en perspective de la participation au Bénin avec les États d’Afrique montre une bonne performance qui le fait référencer comme le plus performant pour ses procédures et pratiques et comme source d’inspiration de mise en place des dispositifs participatifs dans le palmarès des grandes démocraties. Ses deux instruments de la décision, l’analyse participative et l’audience publique, restent perfectibles. La première, une innovation intéressante à encadrer, limite la participation à des acteurs choisis selon des critères généralement non énoncés. L’audience publique reste insatisfaisante par son inadéquation à la production de la décision collective et un modèle antinomique de la pensée politique africaine qui vise le consensus dans une démarche inclusive à essence délibérative sous forme de palabre. Fondement de la démocratie participative, la palabre offre le soubassement pour un modèle synergique basé sur les principes de délibération collective, d’offre de l’initiative de la décision au citoyen, de l’invitation aux débats et de l’écoute active (DROIE), d’un dispositif décisionnel flexible et adapté, au centre duquel se trouvent la délibération, le huis clos, la validation populaire et la reddition de compte, le recours et la réparation ainsi que le contrôle de qualité de la décision, essentiels à la gestion, et structurants à l’évaluation environnementale. / Based upon the organizational principle of two types of political entities found in Benin, the purpose of this research is to explore one or several joint, classic and traditional participation models in order to promote a participative democracy closer to citizens. Three spatial scales have been used for the field research: Africa, central Benin and communities close to ancient kingdoms. Documents and data generated through observation and interviews were analyzed using grounded theory principles and ”appréhension des phénomènes socio-spatiaux”. Among the four original models including endogenous criteria for assessing participation which correspond to Benin’s cultures, two – Togbésso-Hon-Togbassa and Daŋnou – appear as properly suited to meet the requirements of a democracy with territorialized forms of participation. When participation in Benin is compared with that of other African States, its good performance elevates it as a reference in terms of effectiveness of procedures and practices. As such, Benin has become a source of inspiration for implementation of participatory mechanisms within major democracies. Both its decision making instruments – namely participatory analysis and public hearing – may still be perfected. The first of the two –an interesting innovation which nonetheless deserves to be highlighted – limits participation to players selected according to criteria which generally remain implicit. Conversely, public hearing remains unsatisfactory by inadequately allowing the production of collective decision making, as well as by instituting a model in contradiction with African political thought, which rather seeks consensus through an inclusive and deliberative approach known as ”la palabre”. At the founding of participative democracy, “la palabre” provides a synergistic, flexible and responsive model based on the DROIE principles for decision making, at the center of which prevail deliberation, ”le huis clos”, popular validation and reporting, use and repair, as well as quality control of decision. All of these are essential as much to management as to the structure of environmental assessment.

長久以來，台灣原住民族的土地及領域權利始終受到忽視和剝削，原住民族的傳統領域與其知識逐漸式微。為了重新爭取原住民族的土地權利及保存珍貴的傳統生態智慧，恢復傳統領域和傳統領域知識即為首要任務。 近一、二十年來，隨著國際上主張生物多樣性和多元文化的思維潮流，我國也開始提倡對原住民文化及其自然關係的尊重，從早期的部落地圖運動到傳統領域土地調查計畫，透過調查與部落地圖的繪製可將隱藏在生活中的歌唱、舞蹈、傳說故事…等傳統領域知識記錄、保存下來；而這些田野調查工作有許多不同的方式，如參與觀察、個案研究、深度訪談、工作坊…等，並常搭配不同的參與式製圖為其工具，如：心智圖、參與式立體模型（Participatory 3D Modelling, P3DM）、地理資訊系統（Geographic Information System, GIS）…等。 本研究參與觀察並分析比較各項參與式製圖法，將觀察到的成果結合文獻整理之設計準則，納入至原住民族傳統領域WebGIS地圖平台與其他網頁之設計規劃。建置一以原住民族傳統領域為主題，蒐集劃設傳統領域知識和範圍並傳遞資訊的參與式平台，達到參與式製圖之目的。並至平台啟用後使用網頁分析工具和使用者深度訪談，追蹤分析其後續之公眾參與成效，藉此改善平台功效並提出方案以促進公眾參與及使用率。

Il est très commun d’entendre dans les discussions sur l’urbanisme que la participation du public est nécessaire, mais la manière de faire participer reste encore sujette à énormément d’expérimentation et d’incertitudes. Cette étude s’intéresse au design institutionnel des processus de participation en urbanisme, sous l’angle de leurs effets de démocratisation. L’étude cherchera à identifier les aspects déterminants des processus de participation en urbanisme afin d’offrir, à ceux qui les conçoivent, un éclairage sur les implications des choix qu’ils effectuent. L’analyse se construira à partir de l’étude du fonctionnement concret d’une opération de planification concertée à Porto Alegre, dans le secteur Lomba do Pinheiro. Elle s’appuiera sur un découpage des modalités du processus élaboré à partir d’une revue des ouvrages techniques sur la participation en aménagement. Après avoir décrit la culture de la participation et de planification propre à Porto Alegre et comment celle-ci s’est construite, l’analyse décrira, à partir d’observations sur l’évolution du processus et de ses résultats, les effets du processus en termes d’impact sur l’espace bâti, de transformation des relations sociales et de possibilité de faire apparaître des conflits. Les conclusions feront voir l’importance des modalités plus informelles du travail des organisateurs, de même que la nécessité de mettre le projet au centre du processus afin d’établir un terrain commun. Le rôle crucial de la sélection des participants sera souligné. De fortes réserves seront exprimées quant à la pertinence de la transformation des relations sociales comme objectif pour les processus de planification concertée. / It is quite common, when discussing city planning, to call upon the necessity of public participation. However, the means by which the public participates are still mainly left to experimentation and uncertainty. This dissertation questions the institutional design of participation processes in city planning, from the angle of their democratization effects. It will tempt to identify determining aspects of public participation processes in city planning in order to offer, to those who design them, keys to understanding the implications of their choices. The analysis will be based on the study of the day-to-day operations of a collaborative planning process in the Lomba do Pinheiro district of Porto Alegre. It will use a sectioning of process components built from a review of technical books on participation in design Having depicted Porto Alegre’s specific participation and planning culture and how it was constructed, the analysis will, by observing the evolution of the process and its result, describe the process’ effects in terms of impacts on the built environment, on the transformation of social relations, and on the possibility of making conflicts apparent. Conclusions will reveal the significance of informal aspects in the work of facilitators as well as the necessity to put the project at the center of the process in order to establish a common ground. The crucial role placed by the selection of participants will be outlined. Strong doubts will be expressed on the relevance of the transformation of social relation as a goal of collaborative planning.

This PhD thesis in Spatial Planning argues for the importance of understanding the approaches to knowledge and rationalities embedded in spatially relevant decision-making. It emphasises the significance of seeing law as an empirical object of study for planning and environmental management. The Swedish development of wind power and 3G mobile infrastructures are used as cases to study these issues of principal interest. It is a compilation thesis consisting of a comprehensive introductory framework and five articles or chapters that have also been published elsewhere. The study is based on three main perspectives: Level of decision-making, legitimacy of different forms of knowledge involved in the process, and the sociolegal tension between formal law and its practical consequences. The thesis deals with problems stemming from the multi-level tensions in the planning and implementation that exist between the national, the regional and the local authorities. The legal context is analysed from the sociolegal perspective, in particular how the juridification of siting and permit conflicts determines what type of knowledge that can legitimately affect the decision-making and thereby set conditions for public participation. Finally, the thesis elaborates on the largely counterproductive results of the strong emphasis on “efficiency” in the revision of planning and permit processes for wind power and 3G-infrastructure, and what can be learnt from the experiences of the attempts at increasing efficiency. A combination of methods has been employed in the studies, and the data comes from a range of sources such as a large set of mast building permits, a sample of wind permit cases, as well as appealed permit cases. In addition, interviews have been conducted with judges from relevant courts, including regional handling officers who assess wind turbine applications. Legal documents such as preparatory work and licence conditions have also been analysed. The results show that there is a legal-rhetorical adaptation to the expert-based decision-making in court when permits are appealed. Further, the administrative levels interact poorly in the overall implementation. The national decisions, irrespective of the normative viewpoint of who should control the landscape planning, could be better informed of the preconditions at a local level that factually define the outcome of the implementation. The author, Stefan Larsson, holds a PhD in Sociology of Law, an LLM and is a sociolegal researcher who generally studies issues in the intersection of conceptual, sociolegal and technological change. The thesis has been supervised by Professor Lars Emmelin, The Swedish School of Planning, BTH, and co-supervised by Professor Karsten Åström, the Department of Sociology of Law, Lund University. The thesis is the result of research within the programme Tools for environmental assessment in strategic decision-making, MiSt, funded by The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Centre for Work, Technology and Social Change at Lund University. / <p>Full text available: http://lup.lub.lu.se/luur/download?func=downloadFile&amp;recordOId=4587806&amp;fileOId=4 588973</p>

Au Québec, comme ailleurs en Occident, de plus en plus de personnes sont confrontées à une expérience de souffrance et d’exclusion qui les renvoie à la marge de la société. Cette thèse permet de saisir comment des personnes qui ont vécu une importante situation d'exclusion, entre autres, en raison de leur problème de santé mentale, en arrivent à se reconnaître comme des citoyennes en s'engageant dans leur communauté. Elle amène aussi à comprendre par quel cheminement ou parcours elles sont passées pour en arriver à s'émanciper des limites et contraintes qui pesaient sur elles. Enfin, elle éclaire le rôle joué par la participation à l'intérieur de leur parcours. Menée dans une perspective interdisciplinaire, cette recherche s’alimente de plusieurs courants théoriques tels que la sociologie, la psychanalyse, la science politique et le travail social. La notion de parcours d’émancipation permet de « s’émanciper » du modèle biomédical dominant en santé mentale en présentant une vision sociopolitique intégrant les dimensions individuelle et collective du changement. Elle amène à comprendre la constitution du « sujet-acteur » aux plans personnel et politique, c’est-à-dire le sujet qui advient par le travail de l’individu sur lui-même lui permettant de faire rupture avec son histoire passée et de la reconfigurer de manière à lui donner un nouveau sens, et l’acteur qui vient concrétiser la manifestation du sujet en actes, donc, la façon dont il s’actualise. La recherche met en évidence l’apport des organismes communautaires en santé mentale à ces parcours d’émancipation en identifiant les valeurs qui les animent et les dispositifs mis en place pour soutenir la transformation des personnes dans l’ensemble des dimensions de leur être : rapport à la « maladie », à soi, aux autres et au monde. En s’inspirant de Winnicott, on constate qu’ils constituent des espaces potentiels ou transitionnels qui donnent un ancrage sécuritaire et profond et qui jouent le rôle de « passeur d’être » permettant au sujet de s’actualiser et de devenir autonome. Ils apportent aussi une importante contribution à la réalisation des valeurs démocratiques et offrent des occasions aux personnes de se manifester en tant que « sujets-citoyens ». / In Quebec, as elsewhere in the Western world, an increasing number of people are confronted to experiences of suffering and exclusion that confine them to the margins of society. This doctoral thesis aims at understanding how people who have lived through an important experience of exclusion – because of their mental health status among other reasons – can come to recognize themselves as full citizens by getting involved in their community. It also allows us to understand the course of action or journey they went through in order to become emancipated from the limits and constraints that weighed them down. Finally, this research underscores the role that participation can play in this journey. This thesis was undertaken in an interdisciplinary perspective, and borrows from various theoretical literatures, such as sociology, psychoanalysis, political science and social work. The concept of “emancipation journey” (parcours d’émancipation) that is central to our work allows us to distance ourselves from the biomedical model which remains dominant in mental health by putting forth a socio-political vision integrating the individual and collective dimensions of change. This concept helps us understand how “acting subjects” come to constitute on personal and political levels: both as “subjects” that arise when individuals break free from their past and work at giving it new sense, and as “actors” who materialize the manifestation of the subjects in actions, that is, the ways they self-actualize. This research underscores the contribution of community organizations working in the mental health arena to these journeys of emancipation by identifying their values and the content of devices developed to support the transformation of the persons in various dimensions of their being: relation to “illness”, to oneself, to others and to the world. Borrowing from Winnicott, we consider these organizations as potential or transitional spaces, in as much as they offer a secure and profound anchor and can be seen as “ferryman of beings” allowing the subject to self-actualize and to become autonomous. They also contribute to the realization of democratic values and offer opportunities for people presenting a mental health problem to engage as “subjects-citizens”.

The key approach of this thesis is to define closer discourse and importance of civic engagement in the media from the point of view of journalistic practice. This study examines trends of citizen journalism and community media that support active citizen participation and contribute to diversity of media content. The vision of traditional journalism disruption and enforcement of news agenda focusing on public interest became the key message of alternative media. The first two chapters concentrate on the origins of public interest involvement in the history of media discourse. They also highlight the alternative journalism characteristics, its current typology and the role of citizens supporting the concept of media democratization. They also specify the character of transformation of on-line professional journalism and its relationship to user-generated content in journalistic practices. Further four chapters determine specific demonstrations of citizen engagement in public media space and its concepts - public journalism, citizen journalism and community media. These chapters refer to characteristic of these phenonenons, they evaluate their contribution to the public life, concrete performance and practical applications abroad and in the Czech Republic. They also mention the key critical...

Quel droit de l’environnement pour quelle société ? Avec une méthode qui conjoint un examen socio-anthropologique et un examen juridique, cette thèse pose la question pour la Nouvelle-Calédonie, par une analyse du passé récent, des difficultés contemporaines et d’une refondation rendue possible par une évolution de la pensée juridique et au moyen d’outils élaborés récemment ailleurs et qui ont permis par exemple de reconnaître la personnalité juridique à des éléments de la nature.Reconnue comme hotspot mondial de la biodiversité, avec la menace environnementale que constitue l’exploitation des immenses ressources minières de nickel, comment la Nouvelle-Calédonie, près de 150 ans après son annexion par la France et son engagement depuis une trentaine d’années sur le chemin de la décolonisation, s’y prend-elle pour protéger son environnement naturel ? La réponse que nous obtenons par l’étude du droit positif, des institutions, du droit comparé, des discours et du travail de terrain, est claire : le droit applicable aujourd’hui en Nouvelle-Calédonie est issu d’une rationalisation exogène des relations sociales. Il est de fait inadapté au contexte culturel du Pacifique. Les relations Homme Nature, équilibrées, ont été « désenchantées » par la christianisation, la colonisation et la rationalisation scientifique. Comme dans beaucoup d’endroits, en Nouvelle-Calédonie, le sacré qui caractérisait ces relations a été écarté au profit de ce que nous avons choisi d’appeler le « complexe de Noé » et qui est devenu le fondement de toute politique environnementale. Notre diagnostic sur les limites du droit de l’environnement actuel, révèle en détail les carences de l’ingénierie institutionnelle contemporaine, fondée sur des préoccupations politiques de gestion pacifiée d’une société plurielle et de rééquilibrages entre communautés et territoires pour compenser des retards de développement dus aux erreurs du passé.Il existe toutefois un contexte favorable depuis quelques années pour réenchanter la protection juridique de la nature et de ses éléments. Des gouvernements ou des juges sous d’autres latitudes reconnaissent la personnalité juridique à des éléments de la nature. Il est désormais possible de dépasser une conception restrictive du pluralisme juridique comme cohabitation étanche d’ordres juridiques irréconciliables et d’avancer vers un métissage du droit endogène et d’un ordre juridique associé aux formes de l’Etat moderne. Nous suivrons de près la co-construction, avec les populations et les autorités coutumières, par la Province des Iles Loyauté, d’un droit de l’environnement négocié et de principes innovants qui permettent enfin de prendre en compte pleinement dans le droit positif la vision Kanak de la nature. Grâce à une méthode participative d’élaboration du droit, il apparaît que l’on peut concilier, les pluralismes (culturels, sociaux, politiques et juridiques) de la Nouvelle-Calédonie du 21ème siècle, dans le cadre d’un droit négocié, seul garant de l’effectivité du droit pour protéger l’environnement naturel dans un contexte global de changements environnementaux. / What environmental law for which society? With a method that combines a socio-anthropological examination and a legal examination, this thesis raises the question for New Caledonia, through an analysis of the recent past, contemporary difficulties and a re-foundation made possible by an evolution of legal thought and by means of tools developed recently elsewhere, which have made it possible, for example, to recognize the legal personality of elements of nature.Recognized as a global hotspot of biodiversity, with the exploitation of its huge nickel resources being a major environmental threat, how does New Caledonia, nearly 150 years after its annexation by France and its commitment for thirty years on the path of decolonization, fare in protecting its natural environment? The answer we get from the study of positive law, institutions, comparative law, speeches and field work is clear: the law applicable today in New Caledonia is the result of an exogenous rationalization of social relations. It is in fact unsuited to the cultural context of the Pacific. Balanced Man-Nature relations have been "disenchanted" by Christianization, colonization and scientific rationalization. As in many places, in New Caledonia, the sacredness that characterized these relationships has been sidelined in favor of what we have chosen to call "Noah’s complex" and which has become the foundation of any environmental policy. Our diagnosis on the limits of the current environmental law, reveals in detail the shortcomings of contemporary institutional engineering, based on political concerns for a peaceful management of a plural society and for rebalancing between communities and territories to compensate for underdevelopment due to past mistakes.However, there is a favorable context in recent years to re-enchant the legal protection of nature and its elements. Governments or judges in other latitudes recognize the legal personality of elements of nature. It is now possible to go beyond a restrictive conception of legal pluralism as the tight coexistence of irreconcilable legal orders and to advance towards a hybridization of the endogenous right and a legal order associated with the forms of the modern state. We will closely follow the co-construction, with the populations and the customary authorities, by the Loyalty Islands Province, of a negotiated environmental law and innovative principles that finally allow to fully take into account within positive law the Kanak vision of nature. Thanks to a participative method of elaboration of the law, it appears that we can reconcile the pluralisms (cultural, social, political and legal) of New Caledonia in the 21st century, within the framework of a negotiated law that is the only guarantee for the effectiveness of the law to protect the natural environment in a context of global environmental change.