Chapter 6. FRUGAL Indicators: Assessing the Food Strategies of Urban Areas.

The development of Territorial Food Strategies, like the French “Projets Alimentaires Territoriaux”, implies proposing new tools to support local decision-making. The FRUGAL set of indicators has been specifically developed for this purpose: to provide an expertise capacity to local actors and a knowledge base to understand their local food system and to develop and revise their food strategy. In this paper, we present the theoretical elements that made it possible to design and structure this set of indicators; the method for developing these indicators; and how this tool can be used by urban participants wishing to use it for a local diagnosis.

From useful to invasive, the status of gorse on Reunion Island.

Species presently considered as invasive were often deliberately introduced. Which factors led them from being desired to being denounced and what trajectory did such a transition follow? Using the case of common gorse (Ulex europaeus) on Reunion Island, the aims of this study were first, to identify and describe the different status that were attributed to this species since its introduction; and second, to discern the factors that influenced their emergence and decline in the public sphere. Five types of status were identified for common gorse in Reunion (useful, nationalistic, indigenized, noxious weed, and invasive), each peaking at a certain time, and then reverting to a low-key presence.