Residents of this small town in 44 heat themselves cheaply with wood from the municipal forest

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This practice is called affouage, in other words the right to take firewood from a communal forest. An authorization that dates back to the Middle Ages but is rarely used today. On the Guérande peninsula (Loire-Atlantique), the mayor of a small town decided to bring it up to date. And it works.

“A common interest”

For the second time, after 2022, the inhabitants of Saint-Molf, near Guérande, can benefit from water drainage, proposed by the municipality.

There is demand. We are renewing the operation which jointly allows the municipality to maintain its wooded plots and the inhabitants to have wood, in the common interest.

€30 per stere

For €30 per cubic meter of wood, a price approximately three times lower than the market price, each applicant can benefit from at least three cubic meters. But this is standing timber. It must therefore be cut, cut and transported. 25 lots were marked, not exactly equal, neither in quantity nor in diameter of wood. They are awarded by drawing lots.

The 2024 harvesting batches are mainly chestnut trees. They were marked by elected officials Michel Gautreau and Jean-Paul Brosseau.

A new wooded plot

The woods of Toupoussar, affected this year by affouage, is one of 23 small wooded communal plots, on a little more than 1 ha, with “large fir trees which will be cut by professionals in a second phase, a few beautiful oaks which will thus be able to continue their growth, and copses of chestnut trees,” explains Stéphanie Barreaud, elected delegate for the environment.

“It’s good firewood”

Trees have a maximum diameter of 30 cm and a maximum height of 10 m, but many are shorter and smaller. It is a good firewood and some trunks can be used to make 2 m stakes.

“The pleasure of going to the woods”

For Alain, this is not a problem: “I have been making wood for 50 years. I have two chainsaws, a large and a small, a wheelbarrow to carry it to the side of the road and also a trailer which will be very useful for the operation.

For Marie-Paule, beneficiary of lot no. 2, “this wood will be for heating, it's interesting for the price, and why not a few fence posts. Three cubic meters is barely a year's worth of heating, but it's also the pleasure of going to the woods.”

“Not very expensive”

Éric, who drew lot no. 8, declared to the Écho de la Presqu'île:

I used to make firewood. It's nearby, not very expensive. It will be firewood in two years, in the meantime I have some reserves.

“We make wood every year, we get together as a family. If you have the equipment, it's easy. We are currently burning the wood for 2022, after two years of drying,” indicates another beneficiary.

Regenerate the forest

“Chestnut trees cut down, but not uprooted, will produce shoots which, in around fifteen years, could become, for example, stakes,” hopes Stéphanie Barraud, in a spirit of natural regeneration of the forest.

Lots left

The cutting and removal, accessible every day, must be completed on February 2, 2025. The municipality reminds that the various operations must be carried out safely, paying attention to the people around.

This possibility of affouage is reserved for the inhabitants of Saint-Molf, but interested people can still make themselves known at the reception of the town hall, 02 40 62 50 77. There remain a few lots which have not yet been allocated.

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