Help save French forests

In Corrèze, an association called Faîte et Racines ( tinyurl.com/vvdlno7 ) is trying to crowd-fund a project to save some hectares of local forest from what it calls “ coupes razes ”, where parcels of land are sold to companies who remove established woodland.

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The land is then often left in a deplorable state.

Roots are pulled out any old how and no account is taken of underground springs, so landslides can be the result.

If replanting is done, it is likely to be just conifers.

I have noticed huge areas of trees being taken out. Is this the same in other departments?

Some of the wood apparently goes to China, to be made into furniture to be sold back to France, while some is made into pellets for wood-fuelled central heating stoves.

Woodland management is a normal thing, trees are a resource, they can be harvested, but on this scale it seems irresponsible.

I would be interested to hear readers’ experiences from other parts of France.

Helen Beaney, Argentat

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association letters and comment letters forests ecology crowdfunding tree protection

association letters and comment letters forests ecology crowdfunding tree protection