While most of the forest of La Teste-de-Buch was ravaged in July 2022, the Gironde prefecture is opposed to the reconstruction of the forty or so resin collectors’ huts destroyed by the flames.
Le Figaro Bordeaux
Between the fires and the bark beetles, the forest used is no more. Only 200 of these 3900 hectares are still wooded. Faced with the tragedy, the former prefect of Gironde, Fabienne Buccio, had announced in July 2022 that the State would oppose the reconstruction of the resin workers’ huts reduced to ashes. Two years after the terrible fires and a vast project to secure the forest of La Teste-de-Buch, the mayor of the commune, Patrick Davet, no longer sees it that way. “In July 2022, I shouted from the rooftops that if the forest had been maintained, the fire would not have reached this scale. Today, it is cleaned. We cannot refuse the reconstruction of the cabins that burned, we do not have the right to prohibit us from rebuilding our heritage.”
At the beginning of July, the councillor therefore gave his agreement in principle to the evaluation of 19 building permits for these huts, inherited from the time of the resin workers. According to him, they have since been blocked within the prefectural service of the Departmental Directorate of Territories and the Sea (DDTM).
We have no right to be prevented from rebuilding our heritage
Patrick Davet, mayor of Teste-de-Buch
“It is not responsible to allow the reconstruction of cabins in the forest,” assumes the prefecture of Gironde. “The 2022 fire clearly showed that these huts cannot be defended by firefighters due to their large number, their distribution across the entire massif and their often difficult accessibility.” What about the promises to respect the obligations of clearing brush, installing water reserves or a double exit track in the surrounding area? “Illusory”, according to the state which designates the reconstruction of these huts as “a risk to public safety and the forest”.
Sentiment d’injustice
Among the children of the country, like Jean Dubrouse – whose cabin burned down – this position of the prefecture arouses an immense feeling of injustice. “The State is cutting off our roots. We have shown it that we are capable of taking back control of this forest massif on which it has designs (governed by rules from the Middle Ages, the forest of La Teste-de-Buch is an exception in France, Editor’s note). The Gironde is made up of huts. Our resin harvesters’ huts, the oyster huts, the hunting pigeon houses and the huts called carrelets, used by fishermen on the banks of the Gironde.» A feeling shared by Patrick Davet. “I am mayor, but above all I am a Testerin and these cabins are part of our history”he insists. Before emphasizing: “It was not the people in these huts who set fire to the forest. During the fires, they even protected themselves and got out of the forest between them before the firefighters arrived and the fire got too big. No man died in the flames.”
Also read“It was very hard physically”: in Gironde, in the secrets of the vanished profession of resin collector
Moreover, according to the mayor, the presence of these huts is useful because their inhabitants play a preventive role. “They monitor the forest while state officials, who issue prescriptions, do not do so”supports Jean Dubrouse. “Nor were these state officials who filled tanks for months to give water to the animals in the disaster-stricken area.”thunders again the one who bought his cabin and his plots of forest in 2020.
Believing that a refusal to rebuild the burned huts would also create unequal treatment between the owners, their mayor intends to fight. “It’s going to be long and complicated, but I’m for law and justice. And I’m angry because I don’t understand. Today there are leads, the firefighters can enter the massif and I can’t forbid some from rebuilding while others are still living in their cabins.” Or else, it would be necessary “raze all the huts”, which numbered 115 before the destruction of around forty of them by fire. A tragedy that the Testerins cannot imagine and that they would be unable to accept. “There are some who say: ‘I’m 70 years old, I’m rebuilding my cabin before I die. Let them sue me'”confides a resident. With or without administrative approval, some elders would thus have “reclaimed their rights” according to our sources.
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