RURAL NATURE AND URBAN NATURES zy MARC MORMONT" INTRODUCTION Nature zyxwvu - or rather the social use of nature - is crucial to the development of rural areas because the representations it embodies condition the planning and management of rural land. But the question of nature and its implications for rural land are neither exclusively nor specifically rural: prevailing conceptions of nature and the underlying social processes cannot be fully comprehended within the usual confines of rural sociol- ogy. The theme of regional nature parks, taking Belgium as a case-study, shows quite clearly that the social forces (or actors) involved may only be analysed on the scale of society as a whole. This leads us to reflect on the social functions fulfilled by the representations and practices surrounding nature not simply in rural society, but in society at large. Usually, analyses of regional nature parks tend to be divided between zy two quite different if not incompatible standpoints. One perspective tends to value nature parks as a new form of land management through which alternatives may be sought to productivist management, the latter having brought about the present predicament of many farmers, as well as an ecological crisis, by destroying resources, soils and the landscape, and the increasing marginalization of certain rural areas excluded from the domi- nant economic currents because of their distinct natural or social condi- tions. In this light, a park is seen if not as the solution to these challenges, then at least as an experimental area for forms of production and also of social organisation which would guarantee integrated local development (and not only agricultural development), environmental protection and less alienating forms of social life (work relationships, community life). This social world view - that of a neo-rural society - is implicitly held by some sociologists. * Fondation Universitaire Luxembourgeoise, Arlon, Belgium. Sociologia Ruralis 1987, Vol. XXVII-1