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This text questions the developing practices of data production and exchange in Environmental Sciences. It is based on a survey on the “Alpine workshop area”, an area created in order to foster collaborative ecological research in a part of the French Alps. We describe how a hybrid collective of researchers and protected area managers was created and highlight the conditions under which collaborations and partnerships between researchers and between researchers and managers might develop. We show that this workshop area does not induce a systematic mutualisation of scientific resources but is rather an opportunity for local negotiations and arrangements between actors. We point to the fact that this regulation of the cooperation does not exclude the permanence of competition strategies and of retention of information.