Walking the paths of the Millevaches plateau with her dog, Corinne* is on the lookout for the latest clear-cutting: in the Limousin forest, residents denounce the practices of silvicultural cooperatives and the industry’s industrial projects.
“Here, the small stream below has been destroyed by the machines and there, we see oil stains. We are in the process of massacring our environment,” fumes this fifty-year-old in front of a plot of around fifty hectares covered with recently fallen spruce stumps and branches.
“We don’t want to put the forest under cover but we demand responsible practices,” adds this “lookout” from the Syndicat de la Montagne Limousin, one of the many collectives mobilized locally.
From Thursday to Saturday, the organization will host the second “living forest assembly” in Royère-de-Vassivière, in this territory on the borders of Creuse, Corrèze and Haute-Vienne where the “industrialization” of forestry is at work.
This is evidenced by countless piles of logs along the roadsides, ready for shipment.
“Between 200 and 300 trucks pass through the town every day,” deplores the PS mayor of Meymac Philippe Brugère, in front of a vast plot of land crossed with windrows (lines of forest waste).
– “Omerta” –
President of the Millevaches Regional Natural Park, the elected official mentions “daily” logging in this territory housing Natura 2000 zones, which causes the disappearance of “thousands of cubic meters of wood”, exported in particular “to China”.
For him, this “looting” of the forest covering a third of Limousin goes hand in hand with an “omerta” on the management of forests, 95% of which are private in the region and whose owners hold an average of three hectares.
Exploitation has accelerated “over the last four years” due to tight demand and an increase in wood prices, linked in particular to the war in Ukraine, notes Marc Deconchat, forest landscape ecologist at INRAE. .
Another factor, the arrival “at economic maturity” of stands of trees around fifty years old, harvested at the same time. On the plateau, the original heather moors have long since given way to a forest producing conifers (28% of species).
According to the scientist, the increase in clear felling – criticized for its effects on the soil – would also be favored by a “pernicious effect” of the government plan aimed at planting a billion trees more adapted to climate change.
– “Ecocide”-
A “deception” razing “healthy” forests for the benefit of Douglas-fir, a species prized by industrialists, accuses the environmental association Canopée.
“The Limousin forest is shrinking. In Creuse, the volume of standing wood decreases each year by 0.2 million cubic meters,” says its spokesperson, Bruno Doucet.
High points of the protest: the extension of a mega-sawmill in Égletons (Corrèze) and the establishment of a wood pellet factory in Guéret.
An “ecocide” project for LFI MP Catherine Couturier: “clearcutting will be even greater” to supply this factory “more than 70% with hardwoods”, assures the author of a transpartisan bill on the subject .
A national demonstration planned for Sunday was postponed until the fall due to the legislative elections.
“We are not woodcutters,” retort the forestry cooperatives, bringing together tens of thousands of owners. They denounce the sabotage of harvesters by pointing out the ultra-left established around them.
– “Economic success” –
In Limousin, “85% of the cuts are thinning cuts. The surface area of conifers has decreased by 20% in 30 years. There is no phenomenon of resin build-up”, argues Benoît Rachez, general director of Unisylva, associated with Biosyl for the pellet factory.
“It is an outlet for small wood, which will improve the vitality and growth of the forest, essential for carbon capture.”
“It is not because a surgeon botches an operation that surgery should be thrown out with the bathwater. We are constantly improving,” adds Lionel Say of the Bourgogne Limousin Forestry Cooperative.
He highlights an evolution of techniques such as eco-reforestation, “permaculture” keeping cut wood on the ground, which is “gaining ground” among owners.
“We are arriving at the first generation of planted forest to be exploited, contested when it was planted and contested today because it is being exploited,” sighs Stéphane Viéban, general director of Alliance Forêts Bois, the leading French cooperative group. “While it is an economic success for this territory.”
And to justify the “necessary mechanization” of forestry in terms of profitability and arduousness: “We will not return to the lumberjack of yesteryear, bent double with his ax in the brush.”
* first name changed.
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