The UMR 208 PALOC "Local heritage, environment and globalisation" is a multidisciplinary joint research unit (UMR) in the humanities and social sciences, under the dual supervision of the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), whose main site is located at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

In a context of strong environmental, ecological and climatic disturbance on a planetary scale, PALOC studies the numerous challenges brought about by the sometimes brutal transformations of the relationship between societies and their environments. The political uses, ideological discourses, scientific controversies, social practices and representations that trigger and/or accompany these transformations are studied through heritagization. The latter, which makes it possible to understand, evaluate, accompany and anticipate the transformations at work in the globalized world, concerns biodiversity, territory and cultural practices.

The unit is organized into three scientific axes and a transversal animation axis. It brings together 40 researchers and teacher-researchers, 4 ITAs, 24 PhD and post-doctoral students. It also includes some fifty associate researchers from Europe, Africa, Latin America and the Indo-Pacific region.