Another forest documentary? Not only that, even if the holding of COP28 in Dubai, until December 12, increases the number of environmental issues. Rather, this is feedback intended for all those who are concerned about our forests, and more particularly for the 2 million individuals who own wooded plots of less than 1 hectare, too small to benefit from rules or regulations. ‘management. LCP journalist Marion Becker chose to meet professionals in a positive approach, which broadens the potential audience.

Tree mortality in France has increased by 80% in a decade, compromising the capacity of forests to store carbon, of which they constitute the planet’s second sink after the oceans. The French are particularly concerned, since the country is 31% covered in forests (17 million hectares).

In the Jugny national forest, in Côte-d’Or, Brigitte Musch and Lilian Duband, from the National Forestry Office (ONF), note the damage. Present on this soil for ten thousand years, it only took five years of drought and heatwave for the beech trees to die, having become unsuitable for their new ecosystem. As for the spruce trees, they are nibbled by insects, which proliferate during an exceptionally hot month of September.

Shot down twenty years early

In the Morvan, it is the clear felling, started in the 1970s, which is damaging the forest. “The Morvan owners are not exempt from reproach, because they hastened to sell their forests,” explains Lucienne Haese, 82 years old, forty of whom spent protecting hardwood trees from intensive exploitation. With her association, she bought 350 hectares, managed by an expert, Tristan Susse, who applies – and explains – “irregular forest”.

“Even if we do the best, we are not sure of anything,” says Alexandre Couvenant, manager of private forests in Nièvre, where poplars and ash trees are cut down twenty years in advance because they are diseased. Economy and ecology must now act together to find solutions, he said after recognizing past errors.

In Auvergne, it’s the fir tree that can no longer resist. The solution will come in part from the “Giono” assisted migration operation, presented by a geneticist from the ONF, with the planting of Mediterranean species, such as the downy oaks of the South or the cedar of Lebanon. At the same time, lesser-known species are tested, initially, on “islands of the future”, to avoid any risk of imbalance in the biotope, due, among other things, to invasive varieties.

In half a century, our landscapes will have visually changed under the effect of this “Mediterraneanization” of copses and high forests. But it’s for a good cause, says Lucienne Haese with a smile: “You have to send a positive message in your film. »