The State has announced the elimination of 95 positions within the National Forestry Office as part of its 2025 budget. Elected officials from the association of Forestry Municipalities and Communities of Gard are opposed to this.
The ONF is a public and commercial establishment which has several missions: a public service mission to manage public forests and a competitive mission as a private company. According to elected officials, climate issues (fires, Cévennes episodes, etc.) call into question this dual action. Especially since the municipalities benefit from the expertise of the ONF for management, as well as fire prevention. The State provides resources to the ONF to provide this public service to communities.
“These resources represent 0.02% of the budget of the Ministry of Agriculture and Sovereignty and Forestry (the name forest has recently been added…) on which the forest depends, while the public forest represents 11 % of the surface of France It should also be noted that the budget of this ministry is increasing by 1.6 billion this year 2024, going from 6 to 7.6 billion. Added to this are the government’s announcements asking communities. to make 5 billion operating savings For elected officials, it’s a double penalty.” explains the Association of Forest Communes in a press release.
“This is unacceptable for the preservation of forests and it is unacceptable for municipal budgets. As a reminder, this announcement comes less than a month after the release of a report from the Court of Auditors. This criticizes the policies which dismantle the ONF, recommend increasing funding and payroll, taking care of biodiversity and demanding real awareness from the State of the need to care about the French forest which is in real danger. it is proposed, the exact opposite!”
For Cédric Clemente, president of the association of forest municipalities and communities of Gard, this job elimination was predictable: “ We announced it in 2022 during the last discussions with the State! They seek by all means to reduce forest management. They only have an economic vision when the issue is climate and of general interest! Today, we refuse the State’s proposal to eliminate positions at the ONF. Elected officials are attached to field technicians who advise elected officials on a daily basis in the management of their municipal forest or who help them in preventing fire risks. The reflections of their Parisian hierarchies on the savings to be made are not relevant if we want a public service which defends all the issues of the Mediterranean forest. In this same logic, we also ask for the separation of the competitive services of the ONF in another structure which has nothing to do with the ONF, to avoid confusion of genres! »
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