The OFB was created on 1 January 2020 from the merger between the former French Biodiversity Agency and the National Office for Hunting and Wildlife. The office is under the supervision of the Ministries of Ecological Transition and Agriculture. Its prerogatives are extremely broad: it creates and disseminates knowledge on the subject of biodiversity, intervenes at the forefront of public policies, contributes to the management and restoration of protected areas, ensures the missions of administrative and judicial police relating to water and biodiversity, and mobilizes society around biodiversity protection projects.

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“The OFB's ambition is huge!” Start by getting the researcher excited. “The plurality of missions entrusted to it and its strong presence in the territories make it a very unique organization, when compared to other public biodiversity agencies that exist internationally.”

Composed of twenty-five members (gender parity), the council represents numerous disciplinary fields: “there are several ecologists with diversified specialties (biology, forest ecology, marine ecology...) but also researchers in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, philosophy, philosophy, philosophy, law, law, law, law, economy, economics, management sciences, geography...” lists Frédérique Chlous. “This interdisciplinarity is exciting, and it allows us to grasp the questions asked in a transversal and systemic way, which is absolutely necessary” she continues. However, I am learning that transversality is a source of additional difficulties for scientists, who are used to working in silos. “We all speak different languages” says Frédérique Chlous. “When writing a text for the OFB, we noticed that we did not necessarily have the same definitions for certain concepts. We need to agree on the terms or identify our differences.” Moreover, the working methods of scientists differ according to their disciplinary field: the data are quantitative for some, qualitative for others, the temporalities and the spaces treated vary... “It is a challenge”, summarizes the President of the Council, “but we must continue to work together if we want to clarify the specific requests of the OFB”.

Since the challenges of biodiversity are naturally territorialized, I am wondering about the relevance of a centralized national agency to ensure the restoration and protection of living beings. So I ask Frédérique Chlous what is the scale of their action. Answer: it is twofold. The Office acts at the national level “on the subjects of knowledge of biodiversity, of working upstream of public policies, and of the management of protected areas” in particular. But, with its 90 departmental services, the organization also deploys its action in a territorial manner, everywhere in France. In particular, several local experiments are being implemented to mobilize citizens across their territory. For example, the initiative of communal biodiversity atlases invites municipalities to identify the biodiversity present on their territory. The “territory committed to nature” action also encourages municipalities to integrate biodiversity into all their urban policies.

Not only does the local application of the OFB's prerogatives make its actions more effective, but it also makes it possible to embody the protection of biodiversity at the individual level. “From an anthropological point of view, this scale is interesting”, confirms Frédérique Chlous, “because it brings the very broad topics of biodiversity back to questions that are simpler to understand, more familiar. There is often an attachment of individuals to their territory. Understanding your territory and acting within it is easier than understanding the challenges at the global level. Transformations at the local level are making more sense.”

The transversality and the territorialization of action are therefore the common threads to explain the modalities of its action. But what interests me above all is the least visible part of the work; the part that cannot be read on the agency's website. I share my curiosity with Frédérique Chlous. Through its expertise and recommendations, the Scientific Council necessarily infuses the general spirit of the work of the French Biodiversity Office. How did this collective define ethics and guiding principles for the organization's actions? Frédérique Chlous explains to me that, based on its multiple expertise, the Scientific Council discussed the values that should be associated with action on biodiversity.

To do this, the Council began by considering the three philosophical values inherent in biodiversity. Clearly, biodiversity has an instrumental value: it is a useful resource for humans. Biodiversity also has a relational value: it offers humans relationships with nature and non-humans. Finally, biodiversity has an intrinsic value, independent of humans. This work allowed the Scientific Council to establish a founding principle of the OFB's action, Frédérique Chlous explains to me: “What seems essential to us is that these three values be discussed and irrigate all our reflections on biodiversity. Thus, when setting up a public policy, we must make sure to contribute to the respect of the instrumental, relational and intrinsic value of biodiversity.”

A second principle established as essential by the Scientific Council concerns social and environmental equity: “it is absolutely essential that public biodiversity policies take into account, upstream and downstream, the issues of social, environmental and ecological inequalities, in order to move towards social equity” affirms Frédérique Chlous. She gives me the example of setting up a protected area, which can exclude certain social activities that depend on this territory. Likewise, access to healthy and local food, natural spaces and amenities (the benefits provided by the environment) cannot be privileges. “All of these topics are closely linked to issues of geographic and environmental segregation. Populations excluded from these rights or suffering from environmental alterations also often come from disadvantaged social or economic backgrounds,” continues Frédérique Chlous. “The United States has a fairly ethnic or gendered approach to these issues, while these aspects are very little taken into account in public policies in France. However, there is a real scientific and political challenge here: it is a question of building a just society.” I am won over by this approach to the protection of biodiversity, which is in line with the idea that, in the same way that the living world is interconnected, our response to environmental challenges must be combined with the response to other societal challenges.

The common denominator of the philosophy and methods of action of the OFB seems quite obvious to me: it is a question of federating the citizens of the territories around a common project to protect living beings. Frédérique Chlous confirms to me that the subject of biodiversity can arouse the mobilization of society, at extremely different levels and in extremely different sectors. Her research led her to focus on a particularly popular mobilization tool: participatory science.

According to Frédérique Chlous, the generic term “participatory science” hides different practices, which can be grouped into two trends: “participatory ecological sciences invite a large number of citizens spread throughout the country to collect certain data, en masse. These data collections allow researchers to answer scientific questions. Participatory research, on the other hand, is more a matter of the humanities and social sciences. It is a question of co-constructing a question with citizens and then working with them to produce data and scientific content.”

The benefits of participatory science are multiple. They provide researchers with valuable data: for example, the National Museum of Natural History was able to build a research project and write an article on the decline of birds and insects, observed thanks to citizen observations collected on participatory science platforms that had existed for years. Participatory science also creates a certain form of acculturation to scientific methods, which is particularly crucial in the era of the multiplication of fake news and the discredibility of science. Finally, they make citizens aware of the need to protect living beings. In fact, it has been proven that participants in participatory science programs subsequently adopt new behaviors to protect biodiversity in their environment. Participatory sciences are therefore an excellent tool - among others - to unite citizens around a common ecological project.

What the work of the OFB Scientific Council shows, in my opinion, is that it is necessary to decompartmentalize the subject of biodiversity. On the one hand, it should be the prism of all public decision-making: “biodiversity should be at the heart of all national policies”, confirms Frédérique Chlous. “Today, it is still very sectorial, in silos. At the national level, ecology should be understood and considered a priority in all areas (transport, food, agriculture, etc.)”. After all, shouldn't the protection of living beings be the ultimate objective of our society?

On the other hand, reflections on relationships between humans and non-humans should not be confined to members of the OFB Scientific Council and environmental philosophers. “This question must become a social debate!” argues Frédérique Clous. “From an anthropological point of view, our relationships with non-humans are fascinating because they refer to the question of alterity. From this subject arise all the questions about the limits that we impose on our society. I think that this debate about otherness should be led by everyone, as soon as possible.” Opening these reflections to the whole of society, from an early age, would allow us to build a new collective story about our relationship with living beings.