When forsters take on the role of the saint... management of community borders in the upper atlas and the argan forests (Morocco)

Relations between foresters and farms in the Moroccan mountains are mainly analysed in terms of opposition: between a regulatory and administrative approach, on the one hand, and strategies of resistance from farmers and communities on the other. This antagonistic reading has proven to be unsatisfactory to capture the complexity of the forestry issues and to analyse the diversity of interaction between foresters and farmers. For instance, bordering areas located at the frontiers between the territories of rural communities which are the subject matter of conflict in usage between the groups and suffer major degradation of their resources are taken over by the forestry administration. It is in those areas that it implements most of its reforestation protected by deferred grazing which is interpreted by the villagers with reference to the customary register (forester's agdal). The purpose of this article is show that in these situations, the forester takes on the role of the "saint" - a figure endowed with divine Baraka who traditionally is involved in arbitrating conflicts in tribal settings - so as to pacify the territory. Far from being negligible, the social and ecological implications of the bordering areas deserve special attention from State departments. © AgroParisTech, 2013.