Presentation short abstract

We explore the application of variability principles into the European policy framework, through the case of the CAP, by asking: how to apply scientific understanding of the new rangeland ecology to European pastoral systems and to the policy processes that frame socio-environmental dynamics?

Presentation long abstract

40 years have passed since the emergence of the New Rangeland Theory (NRT), which revolutionized the ways to see pastoral landscapes and livelihoods. This corpus of multidisciplinary knowledge contests narratives of environmental degradation, equilibrium ecology, and related policy frameworks. This paradigm shift helped reframe local livelihood strategies, especially pastoralism. Once portrayed as chaotic or destructive under equilibrium thinking, pastoral systems are now recognized as adaptive, flexible, and opportunistic, specialised to navigate highly variable environments. However, NRT finds little application at the policy level. In particular, there is a continued disregard of the importance of socio-environmental variability as an essential component and an asset for pastoral systems. In this article, we explore the extent of the application of the variability principles into the European policy framework, through the case of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), by asking: how to apply scientific understanding of the new rangeland ecology to European pastoral systems and to the policy processes that frame socio-environmental changes and dynamics? What elements of innovation and discontinuity would the application of NRT apport to a reform of public policies and territorial public action? We argue that CAP largely relies on top-down, non-territorialized, sector-oriented models that inhibit pastoralism as a system based on socio-ecological and socio-political relationality. We contrast such modus operandi at the policy level with dynamics at play around the practice of pastoralism in Corsica and Molise, where the authors conducted research and fieldwork between 2022 and 2025.