Does the Dynamic of Practices Change the Way of Thinking Kanak Relations to Land-Sea Continuities and Nature?
In New Caledonia tribes, new socioeconomic practices and environmental management negotiations between Kanak people and the Administration reflect a desire to reappropriate and reformulate their relations to nature and land. The notion of « relations » is indeed central to the recent evolution of environmental law, especially regarding marine territories. Claimed territorial legitimacy, particularly considering land-sea continuity, express the projection of representations and ways of being in the world. They are part of the social order and relations that bind humans to each other, to the invisible world of the ancestors and to non-humans. The involvement of Kanak inhabitants of the coats of the Great South of New Caledonia in marine protected area management arenas and the development of new local socioeconomic activities argue for a paradigm shift in environmental management and conservation: above all, what is at stake is to maintain a way of life, which sustainability lies in the ability of contemporary societies to define meaning and to maintain the relations between humans and with the territory.