From the local development to the territorial ecodevelopment

Abstract

This paper explores the shortcomings (from the conceptual, theoretical and ethical points of view) of the territorial development approach in taking into account the complexity inherent in the global socioecological crisis. The author seeks to highlight the need to transcend these shortcomings by way of establishing a dialogue with the ecodevelopment approach – a systemic planning concept that has emerged twenty years before the UN Summit on Environment and Development, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In the last part, the author offers some exploratory guidelines to engage transdisciplinary research units in coordinated experiments with this hybrid concept of territorial ecodevelopment in the next years.