“One layer too many!” » This is how opponents of the South-Berry Regional Natural Park project begin their press release. This Group of Rural Stakeholders (GAR) – this is what it is called – brings together the Rural Coordination (agricultural union), the Union of Private Forest Owners, the Union of Private Rural Property, the Departmental Federation of Hunters and the Brenne Fish Farmers’ Union.
In their sights: the creation, last month, of a collective to support the PNR Sud-Berry project, a park which would encompass the Berry Saint-Amandois and La Châtre countries. Within it: around forty signatories, associations and local personalities, convinced that it is a « chance » for the attractiveness of this “territory with such particular landscapes, bocages, bushes”.
“An already suffocating administrative layer”
On the contrary, the GAR only sees a new layer dedicated to “heighten an already stifling administrative layer”recalling in passing that several communes of Cher have been rejected, for a question of landscape unity, and that “the new zoning does not correspond to the perimeter of existing countries”. And to repeat his arguments: a hedge replanting plan already implemented, existing actors for heritage protection, the risk of new expenses charged to communities, new constraints for farmers, etc.
The presidents of the departmental councils of Indre and Cher also reacted to express “their reserve” towards the project. “In a context of national budgetary crisis which particularly weighs on the Departments, faced with difficult choices to guarantee essential local services, priority must be given to actions and investments responding to the immediate needs of our territories and our fellow citizens “, write Marc Fleuret and Jacques Fleury.
The region accused
In the same perspective as the local right, first in support of the project before backtracking, the two presidents also use the term “administrative millefeuille” and castigate the Region, held by the left, accused of fueling the “political tensions, through a marked insistence on local elected officials to obtain their support”. “Everyone must be a partner, no one must be excluded, otherwise it will not work, warns Nicolas Forissier, deputy for the constituency. However, despite the efforts that I have made personally by organizing meetings in La Châtre and elsewhere, certain actors continue to be excluded from the project and have entered into a form of opposition, which I understand! »
By the end of 2024, a prefiguration association must be created in order to develop the charter of the future PNR.
