“Shouldn’t our deputies debate the future of this falsely ‘green’ ‘forest’? »
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Grandstand. As a child, when I went to the sea crossing the Landes forest in the family car, I found this bizarre landscape: trees all identical with their trunks straight like “I”s and perfectly aligned like the graves of a military cemetery. . I didn’t know anything about the history and present reality of this setting.
Later, I learned quite easily (from Wikipedia and other small, easily accessible sources) that this forest had been devastated several times in the 1950s and that following this, it was decided to replant the pines “in line” by providing wide firebreaks to prevent the spread of fires.
I also learned that this immense artificial forest was quite recent, it dated from the Second Empire. It was a law of 1857 which authorized the massive planting of pines in this “desert”, as Napoleon III called it. A “guy” named Jules Chambrelent (1817-1893) had pushed to clean up this wetland and pave the way for the prosperity of its inhabitants by creating ex nihilo a timber industry based on the monoculture of maritime pine.
In fact, I learned that the Landes forest, of which some parts are burning today was not a forest, but a “factory”. Not a single factory, but several factories in the hands of small and large owners – in fact, mostly large ones: 75% of the area belongs to less than 20% of the owners and the state owns only about 10%. It is said that, in these families of owners, there is a tradition: when a child is born, he is assigned a plot where pine trees are planted (well aligned, straight), which will ensure him a good little capital for his majority.
Funny guys on stilts
Now I better understand my discomfort when I discovered this bizarre landscape as a child.
Ah yes, I forgot something. And before, what was before in place of this forest? Well, before there were funny guys on stilts surrounded by sheep, you see them in old sepia photos. I learned that these shepherds and their families lived in poverty on this moor which, for the most part, belonged to all; we call it “commons”, which is a nice idea. The others were expropriated at the time of the massive planting of pines.
In fact, I realize that you don’t have to be a great forest specialist to learn this story.
So I wonder. I wonder what we are going to do after these tragic fires which have caused thousands of inhabitants to flee and which hundreds of firefighters are bravely trying to put out. We are going to rebuild these villages which have disappeared in the flames, of course. And these thousands of hectares of forest ? Are we going to replant pines?
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