RECALL - Redevelopment of an alluvial quarry: experimental multidisciplinary proposals in the context of the Ecophilopôle project (2017)

Summary:

RECALL addresses the necessary redevelopment of an alluvial quarry after its industrial operation: the Pérouges quarry in the Ain department. The operator VICAT, FRAPNA-Ain and the municipalities of Pérouges and Saint Jean de Niost have been working in partnership to consider how to combine industrial activity, environmental protection and cultural and leisure uses of the site, resulting in the Ecophilopôle project. VICAT and FRAPNA-Ain will be involved in the research to be developed as part of RECALL. The need for redevelopment offers the chance to experiment with dialogue and involvement based on a shared sustainable development project. RECALL is comprised of three parts and will consist in the experimentation of new balances in ecological and human terms. At the ecological level, it will involve studying changes in the state of ecosystems according to the operation of quarries and their redevelopment thereafter. This first part will make it possible to better understand the ecological condition of ecosystems in the quarry context, with a view to providing the partners with recommendations, and will extend over a wide area. The second part will consist in the study of the redevelopment project, bearing in mind that it concerns an area developed and shaped by mankind. This will be based on the study of the perception and involvement of individuals in this naturalisation project according to their profile, status, position in the area, etc. The third part, based on knowledge obtained in the first part, will consist in an analysis of the obstacles and conditions for the development of plant life and the ecological regeneration desired for the site. The purpose of the three parts together is also to assess the epistemological and ethical issues involved in this experimentation of shared reflection, bringing together scientists, operators and inhabitants, on the renaturalisation of an inhabited site. The three disciplines (ecology, geography and philosophy) will interact to offer the most suitable ecological redevelopment scenarios given the context, combining ecological, geographical and historical characteristics as well as the concerns of professionals and inhabitants, and ultimately reveal the conditions for the successful repurposing of the site at the environmental and human level.