Biodiversity in real danger – Liberation
Biodiversity is in poor condition and is severely threatened, that is not a fake news.
Biodiversity in good condition is the guarantee of a livable planet and habitable territories for humans. It’s not a fake news.
What is not a fake news either is that questioning scientific truths is a endangerment of democracy. Life in society and the social contract cannot hold without the agreement of a « Shared truth », recognition of what reality is.
A reminder of three evidences to point out the importance of what is attended by at the moment with an upright context of disinformation in environmental matters. Faced with this, the French Biodiversity Office (OFB), because it has among its missions the mobilization of society in favor of the preservation of biodiversity, deploys a certain number of actions.
It starts with the objectification of the facts, by providing all data, indicators, research results on all aspects of biodiversity (species, environments, pressures suffered, etc.). All of this is accessible and transparent for example with the France Water Portals, Marine France, Nature France, or our scientific and technical publications. Everyone can refer to it and we strive to make them as accessible as possible, including by explaining them to journalists who obviously have a particular responsibility for playing in the fight against disinformation. Objectivation is also the daily presence and speech of OFB agents in the territories.
This objectification is essential it is not sufficient. We must indeed wonder about the reasons that make false information take in opinion.
We can here provide political answers, it is not the field of a public establishment.
But the dissemination of false information is also linked to the perception by part of our fellow citizens of the subjects linked to the ecological transition. They can thus find that these issues are far from their lives, and that the answers provided do not take into account their daily reality.
It is possible to act on this feeling for example by explaining the reality of the issues. Biodiversity is what makes us live. We breathe, we eat thanks to her, she regulates the climate and ensures the quality of our water, it makes our living environment and a large part of our well-being. Let us also help to reappropriate this reality, let’s help each to reclaim their membership in the living. We are working on this, especially with cultural actors.
It is also possible to act by listening to what actors and citizens have to tell us. This is why at OFB we work, as part of the « Life » programto the preparation of a major study on the perception of French in matters of biodiversity, this is also why we deploy various support programs for actors (municipal biodiversity atlas, programs committed to nature.) This is finally why we want to seize links between social and biodiversity issues.
It is a last issue in the face of disinformation, it is that of the capacity for each and each of us to find their place in the city, as an actor citizen. Ofb is grasped from this subject through educational areas. An educational area is a portion of territory chosen by a class or a school which accompanied by the teacher and a referent structure will carry out actions decided within the student council. A concrete learning of citizenship.
Objectify, make you want, listen, involve: four axes of responses to disinformation, four axes underlying the actions of the French Biodiversity Office to preserve and restore biodiversity.
