Résumé
The Forgotten Coast, South New Caledonia, bears the hallmark of nickel extraction, from the end of the 19th century until the early 1980s. In the 1970s, tensions between mining companies and local populations (mainly Kanak) increased in intensity, against the backdrop of rising Kanak claim for independence. Mining activity practically ceased for more than three decades on the Forgotten Coast (except in one enclave). In 2013-14, several mining companies wished to launch new mining exploration campaigns in the area (with different objectives: to maintain their concessions, to open new ones, to increase their production). To do so, they tried to obtain local consent beyond the requirements of the NC mining code. The neighboring populations of Thio and Yaté quickly reacted and declared a two-year moratorium in 2014, extended in 2018 for 10 years. The ban aimed at regaining control over time and imagining the future of this mine-affected landscape. From 2016 onward, the Southern Province of New Caledonia has accompanied the process, which resulted in the creation of Forgotten Coast Provincial Park in 2019. The contribution will describe and analyze the different (and sometimes conflicting) forms of territoriality asserted by the different actors involved in the management and appropriation of the area: the cadastral and concessionary logic of mining companies, the terraqueous territoriality and adjacency fishing rights of Kanak communities, and the environmental logic of the parc.