For more than twenty years a leisure operator has been running quad-bike outings across the garrigue, including in areas where motorized traffic is prohibited. Naturalists are outraged by the practice, yet local authorities have largely stayed passive.
Beaulieu and Grospierres (Ardèche), on the ground report
Boots crunch over stony soil. The low scrub of the garrigue, already stunted at this time of year, is bleached and parched by the late summer sun. Even the scrub oaks look scorched. The distant whine of engines draws attention. Below the ridge, seven ATVs crawl along in single file, weaving ribbon-like tracks through the bushes. The convoy soon reaches the top and heads back toward the Ardèche Loisirs Mécaniques site beside the road.
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A polite nod, slow speed, little dust. “We respect nature, the tracks, and people,” says Jérôme Roupnel, who runs the centre that offers karting plus guided quad, motorcycle and buggy excursions in the countryside, promising as much “off‑road” as possible.
Despite those assurances, satellite images around the business in the Ardèche plain reveal what a walker can see on the ground: some thirty hectares criss-crossed by trails cut by repeated quad passes. That contrasts with the local urban plan, which allocates only three hectares for motor sports, and with laws that prohibit off‑track driving. The expansion of these informal play areas has unfolded gradually over more than two decades.
“This is an environmental no‑man’s‑land,” fumes Lionel Coste, president of the associations Qualité de vie à Grospierres and Fiber Nature, who grew up in this southern Ardèche area. “We’ve said it dozens of times: garrigues are among the most biodiversity‑rich habitats in the region.”
Much of the terrain used is formally protected in ZNIEFF inventories precisely because of its garrigue habitats. Fiber Nature reports having recorded several priority species there, including the woodchat shrike, the calandra lark and the tawny pipit. The ZNIEFF sheet also notes that the flora remains incompletely studied but displays a notable richness of orchids.
Ardèche Loisirs Mécaniques opened its premises in 2003, building facilities and a karting track. A review of aerial photographs and administrative records shows that the available area for rides soon proved too small for operators’ ambitions.
Already in 2004, municipal decrees issued by the two concerned communes, Beaulieu and Grospierres, prohibited motor vehicle circulation in numerous natural zones, such as the forest massif and land surrounding the leisure centre. Signs were put up at track entrances to remind drivers of the ban. “It didn’t go down well; some signs were torn out,” recalls Jean‑François Borie, mayor of Beaulieu since 2001 and now serving his fifth term.
With photos showing quads driving past posted bans, Lionel Coste says the prohibition was ignored. An avid observer of local wildlife issues, he has campaigned for more than ten years against the environmental damage caused by these vehicles. Aerial images document how machines gradually etched more and more tracks into the areas around the site. Opposite the centre, on land zoned agricultural and designated as agricultural land to be protected for ecological reasons, a course with bumps and obstacles was set up and fenced off — work carried out without the necessary planning permission.
In a 2015 letter to the prefect, the then‑mayor of Grospierres estimated the activity already affected some twenty hectares. In Beaulieu, Mayor Borie recounts complaints from landowners and farmers whose anti‑boar and anti‑deer fences were left open and whose fields were crossed without permission.
Coste says that the old ONCFS — since reorganized into the Office français de la biodiversité (OFB) — attempted an inquiry at one time but then gave up. Decatur Metro was unable to obtain a confirming response from the OFB. The Ardèche prefecture’s youth and sports inspectorate did respond: its most recent control was in the summer of 2025 and “raised few observations,” but their checks mainly focus on safety equipment, the vehicles themselves and staff qualifications; matters of land‑use planning or nature protection are not in their remit.
That leaves mayors, who hold police powers in their communes. For Beaulieu’s mayor, “there is no longer a problem.” The centre has changed hands several times; the current owners arrived in 2021. “We’ve hugely reduced the impacts,” he says. “They greet pedestrians, respect nature and properties more.”
Denise Garcia, mayor of Grospierres, shares that assessment. “I had met them because there was dust and noise on tracks bordering homes,” she explains. “They took this on board; I no longer receive complaints from residents.”
Locally, associations also note a thaw in relations with the new operator. Standing by the Chabrière stream that runs through the centre’s tracks, Coste points at traces beginning to fade: “Previously quads used to go through the streambed, crushing tadpoles and amphibians.” A few metres from the enclosures that mark the motocross and paintball areas he points out a stripped branch, the work of a beaver. He has met the manager, Jérôme Roupnel. “He showed me their maps; I told him where it was illegal to drive and they stopped in certain places,” Coste says.
“When we took over the centre, we changed the excursions because before it was madness,” the entrepreneur adds. “We reduced guides from seven to two. We have authorizations from all the landowners, the communes and the associations. We live here and we don’t want neighbours pointing fingers at us.”
But the warmer relations did not last. “I offered to work on restoring the riverside vegetation at the centre, and the manager didn’t reply,” Coste says.
Decatur Metro observed directly that quads continue to run on tracks formed by repetitive use that are neither public roads nor communal paths. That practice is illegal and carries penalties. Off‑track driving “is forbidden even on private land, with the owner’s agreement,” stresses Olivier Gourbinot, a lawyer with France Nature Environnement (FNE) Occitanie‑Méditerranée.
A similar reading comes from Codever, an association that defends nature sports, including mechanical sports. “From what you describe, that’s off‑track riding, so on the face of it not allowed,” says its director, Charles Péot.
Moreover, to promote its quad tours billed as a way to “discover Ardèche 100% nature,” the Ardèche Loisirs Mécaniques website displays several photos of vehicles on paths that are clearly not open to traffic. But the law bans any form of advertising, direct or indirect, that shows a vehicle in the act of committing an offence under the relevant provisions. “Each picture is a fine,” Olivier Gourbinot comments.
Jérôme Roupnel defends his operation, saying he only uses “paths that have always been known since we’ve been here, already worn down.” He notes he is not the only user: “Some locals own machines, and outside hire companies sometimes come from Valence for the day with far more vehicles than us. We limit convoys to six vehicles maximum.”
He argues he has concentrated the impact around the centre, in an area set back from homes. “We only bother the garrigue, and there are many hectares of garrigue,” he says.
Charles Péot, who works nationally to reconcile outdoor sports with environmental protection, urges a pragmatic approach despite the infractions. “If a practice exists, there is a social demand. So before closing off a wild area, we often advise elected officials to find another zone that is less ecologically sensitive,” he explains.
That suggestion exasperates Lionel Coste. “In our countryside people assume garrigues are worthless. When I was a kid we put the goats there,” he says. Motorized activities on long‑abandoned parcels of land, whose owners are sometimes hard to locate and which are far from houses, end up harming “only biodiversity,” laments Giles Martinez, an administrator at the Fédération des associations de protection de la nature (Frapna) Ardèche, who has also followed the Grospierres file. “It’s a problem we repeatedly see in southern Ardèche because we have a lot of land in decline,” he adds.
As a last resort local naturalist groups are now considering taking the matter to court. While the OFB retains authority to enforce against quads driving in unauthorized areas, “this institution is so degraded that carrying out inspections is complicated,” observes Olivier Gourbinot. “So the prosecutor would need to get involved.”
The mayor of Beaulieu, for his part, would like “to find a compromise so that a commercial activity can take place.” He points to agreements used for walking trails between landowners, hikers’ representatives and local authorities. “We could do the same for quads,” he suggests.
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Hi, I’m Ashley from the Decatur Metro team. I share essential information for a sustainable and responsible lifestyle.
