forest plunderers in the sights of justice

In Moselle, the landscape of a forest has been somewhat decimated: dozens of trees, some hundred years old, have been illegally cut down to recover the wood. Nothing remains of Jean-Marc Immer’s family plot, which he will therefore no longer be able to pass on to future generations. “How can we do that?”, he wonders. Like him, 27 owners in three departments were victims of savage cuts.

The alleged culprit is the manager of a forestry group company. The man would have voluntarily cut in private plots around the national forest, in order to resell the wood to buyers, in France or in Luxembourg. The trees are then sent generally to China, to make furniture or parquet. Several sports cars were found at his home, and 500,000 euros were seized by the gendarmes. “Wood is currently a very lucrative market at the global level. There are sectors that are very established”, indicates Jeremy Richter, commander of the gendarmerie brigade of Hettange-Grande (Moselle).