Maya Leroy

Maya Leroy specialises in environmental management, particularly in the field of strategy. She is Director of the Environmental Management UFR at AgroParisTech, and co-director of the Strategic Management research group of Montpellier Research in Management (MRM) at the University of Montpellier.

Her research and teaching focuses on strategic capacities to improve the management of ecosystems and biodiversity, with a particular emphasis on tropical forests and wetlands.

Based on a theoretical grounding in critical management studies, its research draws on a significant amount of empirical fieldwork, case studies and various forms of research-intervention. Ecosystem management situations are approached from an organisational and strategic perspective, making power and contestation essential keys to understanding and/or acting on the way in which management practices and systems promote or, on the contrary, hinder the consideration of environmental dimensions within these organised systems. One of the distinctive features of this work is that it addresses management issues in a variety of organisational and territorial contexts, not centred on a single company or organisation, but in management systems that are often at the interface of public institutions, NGOs, alternative action organisations, companies and corporates. Her research has led to the development of a theoretical framework and methods for assessing the ecological effectiveness of environmental and sustainable development policies, based on the evaluation of the ecological performance of the multi-scale management arrangements they help to implement.

She is currently co-director of the "FORESTT-HUB" research project (2024-2030) as part of the programme on the Resilience of forest socio-ecosystems (PEPR FORESTT). This project brings together a number of disciplines from the humanities and social sciences to analyse the way in which socio-ecological changes in forests have been conceptualised, and acted upon, in the past and present. And looks at how different stakeholders' expectations of forests can lead to disruptive changes in the way forests are managed, and challenge and change the way environmental and materials sciences are mobilised to address environmental change.

This programme is a continuation of its work on this theme.

· L'environnement en mal de gestion. Les apports d'une perspective situationnelle. Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2020, 355p. (with Barbier R., Daniel F.-J., Fernandez S., Raulet-Croset N., and L. Guérin-Schneider)

· Sustainable Management of Tropical Forests. From a critical analysis of the concept to an environmental evaluation of its management arrangements, 2014 Paris, A savoir n°18, AFD, 236p. (with Derroire G., Vende J. and T. Lemenager)

· A strategic evaluation framework to measure and guide efforts to protect biodiversity: Effectiveness of the Natura 2000 policy in France. Environmental Engineering, 2022, 9 (1-2): 67-82 (with P. Rouveyrol et Witté I.)

· Quels besoins de connaissances pour le futur des forêts en France ? Au-delà du plan de relance, Revue Forestière Française, 2021, 73 (1) :7-19 (with Bontemps J-D., Brahic E., Dupouey J.L, Pierre-Michel Forget P-M, Garcia S., Gond V., Nikolaus Kleinschmit von Lengefeld A., Landmann G., Morin X., Pélissier R., Picard N., Marty P.)

· Le mécanisme REDD+ et les projets pilotes à Madagascar : d’un idéal incitatif à la réalité des dispositifs de gestion. Natures Sciences Sociétés, 2018, 26(3), 308-319 (with L. Brimont).

· Advocacy coalitions and protected areas creation process : case study in the Amazon. Journal of Environmental Management, 2017: 198, 99-109 (with S .Nicolle)

She is also a member of several scientific councils: GIP ECOFOR on forest ecosystem, OFB the French biodiversity office, CSFD/UNCCD the French scientific committee on desertification, and FFEM the French facility for global environment, and she is a member of the French Development Agency board of directors AFD