Is the status dating from the Middle Ages of the Teste-de-Buch forest in question?

In La Teste-de-Buch, in Gironde, the fire made little progress on Wednesday July 20. A first day of calm for the hundreds of firefighters in contact with the fire for more than a week. The monster fire, on the edge of the Arcachon basin, destroyed almost all of the “user forest” of La Teste. It is a forest with a special status, rare in France, and ancestral. This status dates from the Middle Ages, and its mode of management described as chaotic is clearly questioned. It greatly complicates the task of firefighters.

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Under a tent at the PC de La Teste, where the firefighters coordinate their operations. Pierre Marzat unfolds a map in front of us: “The user forest stops here, so today this piece remains, that’s all.” This green lung next to which the octogenarian has always lived is today a scorched earth. Partly because firefighters have great difficulty accessing the blaze: dead trees for months, and unkept vegetation, bar their way. So they have to cut, clean the passages… A lot of time wasted not fighting the flames.

“It hurts my stomach a bit”, explains Pierre Marzat. It is a heartbreak for and his comrades of the local Defense of the French forest against fires (DFCI), the forestry group. They have been proposing to maintain and cut trees in this forest for years, and for years they have come up against several oppositions. And first of all that of the inhabitants of the surrounding municipalities: thanks to this particular status of “user forest”, they have a right of inspection on the management of the forest and can block work. They are even the only ones who can come and collect wood for their personal needs. The owners of the plots, on the other hand, cannot do much about it. Impossible to sell the wood, explains Pierre Marzat: “For the owners, there is an absence of income.”

“How do you want us to manage a plot of 40 hectares if there is no income?”

Pierre Marzat, DFCI

at franceinfo

For lack of means, owners let the vegetation grow. And the terrain then becomes impassable for firefighters. “It’s not our fault”defends Jean-Bernard Biehler, who lost three and a half hectares in the fire, and blames an association of inhabitants, the Association for the Defense of User Rights and Forest Users, Addufu .

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According to him, it would block forestry work projects. “In 2021, the Addufu rushed in front of the machines to prevent them from workingsays Jean Bernard Biehler. They then demonstrated in front of the sub-prefecture, so the project was delayed and blocked. This year, no later than July 1, 2022, less than a month ago, the sub-prefect banged his fist on the table and asked that the work begin. This work has started well, but too late to be really useful to firefighters.

In a press release, Addufu ensures that it has never opposed this work, but that it wanted guarantees on the conditions of felling and sale of the cut trees. Today, the only trees to be cut are charred, no one can do anything about them.