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The local conventions can be defined as justifiable agreements negotiated between several stakeholders in a perspective of natural and environmental resources regulation - in terms of control, access, appropriation, usage and exploitation. In Sahel, although they are fashionable and enjoy more attention at the decision-makers, these instruments are still poorly considered in the current context of the decentralization (Diallo, 2003), like plans of occupation and affectation of grounds (POAS) experimented in the valley of the Senegal River. The aim of this paper is to question, from a survey led in a rural district with elected representatives, with technicians, with associative persons in charge and with users, the impact of this informal system, although formalized, of joint land management. The POAS, contributed to strengthen the capacities of the local elected representatives to act in their space, and farmers users to deliberate collectively on a stake so crucial as the agropastoral land tax. It was not however the object of an effective appropriation on behalf of these elected representatives in charge of its application, and these supposed users to follow the agreed operational rules. Between empowerment and problem of appropriation, the local conventions are left by tools necessary for a management shared by the common resources, and thus for a strengthened local governance.

Keywords: décentralisation, conventions locales, gestion des ressources naturelles, plan d'occupation et d'affectation des sols, autonomisation, problème d'appropriation, Decentralization, local conventions, natural resources management, plan of occupation and affectation of grounds, empowerment, problem of appropriation

Alternative dispute resolution methods constitute a substitute option to help people that have been neglected by a State justice system (ordinary or transitional), considering studies on such State justice systems demonstrate that they can be slow, costly and unaffordable. For this reason, Rwanda adopted the community-oriented alternative justice model of Gacaca jurisdictions. Colombia also has its own alternative justice system in place to resolve low-intensity social conflicts, such as the indigenous jurisdictions and the Justices of the Peace and Conciliation. Therefore, one may reasonably ask the following questions: firstly, is alternative justice an efficient instrument to resolve conflicts concerning a violation of mandatory rules of law, or does it remain a mechanism designed to resolve low-intensity conflicts concerning exclusively optional rules? Secondly, could the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court validate an alternative justice system in Colombia, such as Gacaca justice in Rwanda?

The focus of this paper is to examine how collective bargaining has attempted to cope with the problems of worker displacement and how these developments might indicate future trends in union-management relations as well as the limitations of collective bargaining.

Abstract" Info a Basket Carried on the Back " : Importance of Basketry in Gathering/Hunting/ Fishing Economies in Northwestern North AmericaThe role of basketry in traditional cultures and economies of the Northwest region is surveyed and examined, together with the history, diversity and applications of baskets, and the investments of time, energy and knowledge required to produce them. As major containers for food harvesting, transportation and storage, baskets have been an integral part of the seasonal food production Systems in the region. Basketmaking is traditionally women's work. It reflects a complex system of knowledge incorporating not only the techniques of the art, but the ecological and cultural aspects of harvesting and processing the materials. Changes in the production and functions of baskets over time are discussed. Basketmaking continues to the present, but basketmakers have noted impacts of industrial forestry and other recent human activities on the materials they use. Directions for further research in the ecological and économie aspects of basketmaking are suggested.Key words : Turner, ecology, Native Americans, hunters and gatherers, fishing people, handicrafts, basketry

ABSTRACTThe Puget lobe, the southwest-most extension of the Cordilleran ice sheet, provides an excellent opportunity to examine the connection between glacier physics and the resulting products of glaciation. The action of water, at and within the sediments of the glacier bed, is particularly significant for the geologic record of this ice sheet. Physical data and inferred mass balance relationships constrain lobe reconstruction and predict sliding velocities in excess of 500 m/a and water discharges of nearly 1 * 10" m3/a. This sub-glacial water produced a dendritic channel pattern well predicted by static analysis of sub-glacial hydrology. Near to the eastern ice margin, a much larger single channel drained subglacially and episodically, with tributary ice-dammed lakes releasing their water as jokulhlaups. Basal meltwater generated near-hydrostatic water pressures and very low till strengths at the base of the ice sheet. Water pressure dropped only close to the ice margin, allowing normal stresses to rise to significant fractions of the total ice overburden. Thus marginal and interior zones impose contrasting bed conditions. Although observation of sub-glacial deposits will reflect the late-stage passage of the marginal zone, conditions within the ice-sheet interior, far more significant to glacier history and behavior, may be substantially different.

Abstract A distinctive flora of 73 species of vascular plants and numerous bryophytes occurs in the ca. 20 km 2 of alpine tundra in the White Mountains, New Hampshire. The late- Quaternary distribution of these plants, many of which are disjuncts, was investigated by studies of pollen and plant macrofossils from lower Lakes of the Clouds (1 542 m) in the alpine zone of Mount Washington. Results were compared with pollen and macrofossils from lowland late-glacial deposits in western New England. Lowland paleofloras contained fossils of 43 species of vascular plants, 13 of which occur in the contemporary alpine flora of the White Mountains. A majority of species in the paleoflora has geographic affinities to Labrador, northern Québec, and Greenland, a pattern also apparent for mosses in the lowland deposits. The first macrofossils in lower Lakes of the Clouds were arctic-alpine mosses of acid soils. Although open-ground mosses and vascular plants continued to occur throughout the Holocene, indicating that alpine tundra persisted, fossils of a low-elevation moss Hylocomiastrum umbratum are evidence that forest (perhaps as krummholz) covered a greater area near the basin from 7 500 to 3 500 yBP. No calcicolous plants were recovered from sediments at lower Lakes of the Clouds. Climatic constraints on the alpine flora during the Younger Dryas oscillation and perhaps during other cold-climate events and intervening periods of higher temperature may have led to the loss of plant species in the White Mountain alpine zone. Late-glacial floras of lowland western New England were much richer than floras of areas above treeline during late-glacial time and at the present.

ABSTRACTApproximately 2550 km of single-channel high-resolution seismic reflection profiles have been interpreted and calibrated with lithological and geochronological information from four representative piston cores and one grab sample to provide a regional stratigraphie framework for the subbottom deposits of Lake Ontario. Five units overlying Paleozoic bedrock were identified and mapped. These are classified as informal units and represent, from oldest to youngest: (A) subglacial till (?) deposited by the Port Huron ice at the end of the Wisconsin glaciation; (B) an ice-marginal (?) unit confined to the western part of the lake that was probably deposited during retreat of the Port Huron ice shortly after 13 ka; (C) a regionally extensive unit of laminated glacio-lacustrine clay that accumulated until about 11 ka; (D) a weakly laminated to more massive lake clay deposited during a period of reduced water supply and rising water levels after the drawdown of the high-level glacial lakes (Iroquois and successors); and (E) modern lake clay less than 10 m thick that began accumulating around 6-8 ka with the subsequent return of upper Great Lakes drainage through the Ontario basin. Seismic reflections also define the configuration of the bedrock surface and pre-glacial stream valleys incised in the bedrock surface. Several anomalous bottom and subbottom features in the surficial sediments are mapped, such as discontinuous and offset reflections, furrows, gas pockets, and areas of large subbottom relief. None of these features appear to be spatially correlative with the diffuse seismicity that characterizes the lake area or with deeper structures such as Paleozoic bedrock faults or crustal-penetrating faults in the Precambrian basement.