Breaking News: Chestnut Trees Not Doomed, Contrary to ONF Claims!

X Facebook WhatsApp

In the Cévennes region, approximately twenty hectares of chestnut trees have been cut down, a clear-cutting that has deeply affected the local residents accustomed to this forest. Among them is our journalist Marie Astier, who ponders the possibility of alternative actions.

The rain only adds to the melancholy of the scene. Our boots slog through a muddy path carved by the tracks of the machine that, just a few meters ahead, systematically fells the trees as if they were mere straws, stacking them afterwards. On one side, the leafy branches destined to be crushed into chips. On the other, trunks that will end up as firewood. The piles are neatly arranged on either side of the wide path, reminiscent of a Champs-Élysées in ruins. The hilltop is already bare, and soon, the slopes will follow.

Why the 12-5-30 Incline Walking Method Is the Ultimate Fat-Burning Workout, According to Fitness Experts

The ultimate trick to banish mold from your bathroom grout in just 7 minutes—no vinegar or baking soda needed

On the ground, amidst the uncrushed remnants, lies a carpet of autumn-hued dead leaves and half-eaten chestnuts, likely the work of wild boars. In this forest, “I’ve been coming here since I was born,” asserts Gilles, a 63-year-old resident of Saint-Florent-sur-Auzonnet, a neighboring village. This forest is his sanctuary, far from the noise of roads and the chaos of the world. “It’s the only place where you can let go of all your troubles,” he says.

It was his wife who raised the alarm in early January. “She saw it while walking the dog,” Gilles recalls. “Everyone used to come here to gather chestnuts,” he tells me, listing all the nearby villages involved. From there, the story quickly spread throughout the area… and eventually reached me. Sunday walkers, hikers, mushroom foragers, chestnut gatherers, hunters…

Every day, I hear from someone who has gone to check on the progress of the logging. The elders, like Gilles, return with tears in their eyes. “The ONF is clearing Maraval,” people say back home. Specifically, it’s the chestnut trees in plot 107 of the Rouvergue state forest, about twenty hectares owned by the state and managed by the ONF — National Office of Forests. For the agency, there was no other solution but to cut down these diseased trees… But for us, faced with this scene of devastation, it’s hard to believe it was the only option.

Here I am, atop the hill above my home, with Gilles, gazing out over the Cévennes and the end of the woods I regularly visit on weekends. Anxiety rises: in this landscape of cut trees, I’ve lost my bearings. Where is the slope rich in chanterelles? The spot for porcini mushrooms? Here, we’ve filled entire baskets with black trumpets. Some summers, we even found golden chanterelles, a mushroom with a nutty flavor considered a delicacy. A luxury item.

Every autumn, we would bring friends here for our annual “chestnut weekend.” They remember having to haul the kids up steep paths, dead leaves up to their calves, to find the finest chestnuts in the valley. Large, flavorful, plentiful. We made puree and jam from them. This forest was a place of sustenance. It’s not all cut yet, but I’m already speaking of it in the past tense. So is Gilles.

“It’s a heritage, these centuries-old chestnut trees,” he laments. They are within the adherence area of the Cévennes National Park, in the territory of the AOP Cévennes Chestnuts. But this ancient orchard, once cultivated like many others in the Cévennes, is now abandoned.

I call the ONF to understand the reasons behind this drastic decision. “Yes, in the Cévennes, chestnut trees are sacred,” begins David Massa, the ONF official in charge of the area, as soon as he picks up the phone. He doesn’t seem surprised. Dealing with people upset about tree cutting is probably part of his daily routine.

“The trees were deteriorating; we had no choice,” he explains. “They were afflicted with every possible disease: canker, ink disease, leaf curl… And then there’s climate change. These chestnut trees had a 99 out of 100 chance of dying!”

Cutting them down to the stumps is his attempt at rescue. “Within six months to a year, you’ll see shoots 2 to 3 meters tall,” he assures me. He also informs me that they’ve planned to leave a few patches about a hundred square meters each, with the oldest trees. But he makes no promises. Climate change dictates its rules: our chestnut trees are only at an altitude of 400 meters, not high enough to remain in temperatures suitable for these trees in the coming decades.

“With some luck, they’ll grow back. We might gain another 20 or 30 years. But my kids, they’ll never see chestnut trees like the ones we knew, 50, or even 80 cm in diameter,” continues the official, taking an educational tone. Eventually, according to ONF plans, this ancestral chestnut orchard is scheduled to be replaced by a mosaic forest, consisting of holm oaks or downy oaks, for example, which are better adapted to climate change.

Of course, but couldn’t we, for instance, have refrained from clear-cutting all 20 hectares at once? Now that there is no cover, it’s easy to imagine the young shoots scorching in the first heatwave, or the soil washing away in the slightest rain, typical of the Cévenol episodes… The forester concedes an economic constraint. “You see the machine moving around? It costs 200 to 300,000 euros. If I tell them there are only 2 hectares to do, they can’t afford it.”

Listening to him, I got the impression that all the chestnut trees were doomed in the Cévennes. The word I hear, both from his mouth and from local officials, which I read in reports, is that the chestnut tree is “declining.” Does the emblematic tree of the Cévennes still have a future?

Yildiz Aumeeruddy-Thomas, an ethnoecologist leading a study on adapting chestnut groves to climate change, reassures me. “The chestnut tree is not going to disappear in the Cévennes,” she tells me in a tone both gentle and confident. “And to say that 20 hectares of chestnut groves are going to die anyway from ink disease, canker, and climate change is a bit much. Especially since if there were large trees, it means the soil must still be good for chestnuts.”

It all depends on the conditions, “including the density and the slope,” she explains. The old orchards have a better chance of survival, as often the trees were more spaced out, which reduces the risks of injury and thus the proliferation of canker disease. Being on a north-facing slope, as a good portion of our 20 hectares are, is also a plus against rising temperatures.

She is also critical of the decision to clear-cut: “It’s condemning the chestnut grove that will regrow. It weakens the stump and the ability for new shoots to root well, and there will no longer be enough cover to protect against torrential rains and the risk of soil erosion.”

An opinion shared by the Canopée association, which shows how thinning of chestnut coppices, rather than clear-cutting, has avoided the “thermal shock” of clear-cutting, reduced the presence of canker, and yielded vigorous regrowth.

Finally, the researcher studying interactions between trees and humans estimates that the services provided by these chestnut trees, “are not insignificant.” “The food supply, the contact with nature, the contribution to human well-being, these are contributions considered by the IPBES” — the IPCC for biodiversity — of which she is a member. This acknowledgment of our attachment to our forest — even though it is considered “from the nursing home,” as Mr. Massa explained to me — made me feel better.

So, I wondered how we could have taken care of our elderly. Of these elders who have given us so much over the years, only for us to realize too late that they needed us. I discuss this with my colleague. He suggests the obvious solution: “You could have maintained them collectively!”

Ah, if only we had understood the ONF’s plans in time. If only forests were managed as a common good with the residents. If only we had thought to organize ourselves, perhaps we could have resumed the cultivation and maintenance of this plot?

Yildiz Aumeeruddy-Thomas made it clear that it is the cultivated chestnut trees that have thrived. From the ONF’s side, Mr. Massa assures me he would have gladly signed a lease for the plot to a farmer… But no one is found for such work anymore.

Gilles, however, is less utopian and reminds me that elsewhere in the Cévennes, where mining has not pushed agricultural activities to such abandonment, initiatives support the maintenance and development of chestnut cultivation. If only, we could have done differently. And who knows, by supporting their regrowth, we might still envision a different future for our chestnut trees.