La valeur du travail de la terre chez les seereer au fondement de l’éthique environnementale

In our so-calledtraditionalsocieties, man is in perfectharmonywith nature, for according to mostmyths, the world ispopulated by living beings, both animal and vegetable, in communion with one another. In Senegal, in the central-western part of the groundnut basin, the seereercommunity has built up a state of ecologicalheritagebased on the rational working of the land. In theirfarmingsystems, the presence of certain trees, the fallowperiod, the use of animals to fertilize the soil and the way in which land isdistributed are essential for a variety of reasonsthat are bothuseful to man and hisenvironment. This age-oldway of working the land is in line withwhatisknowntoday as agroecology, a model of agricultural developmentbased on the rational use of naturalresources and sustainable land management, in orderto alleviateenvironmentalproblemssuch as salinization, intensive farming and land grabbing.KEYWORDS:seereer, ecological, tillage, fallow, agroecology.