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At a time when sobriety and restrictions of all kinds are at the heart of discourse, property developers wish to develop a 400-hectare tourist complex which is causing controversy in the Loir-et-Cher.
To the north of Sologne, in lands that are refuges for wild animals and where nature, season after season, rules, 400 hectares classified as a Natura 2000 area are in the sights of real estate developers. Their project: a huge tourist complex fifteen kilometers from the Château de Chambord (Loir-et-Cher) consisting of a 27-hole golf course, a luxury hotel, a swimming pool, shops and 565 high-end homes . Constructions feared by ecologists in the region, who consider these lands to be a fragile ecosystem.
To build the golf course, the developers plan to destroy 244 hectares of agricultural land, 43 hectares of wooded areas and 53 hectares of wetlands. In return, they promise the creation of 220 jobs and replanting en masse. “There will be more wood after than before”promises Bernard Saunier, leader of the “Domaine des Pommereaux” project.
But replanting is not enough for the opponents, who argue that part of the biodiversity of Sologne will be extinguished because of this project. The forest is not the only sensitive point, water management is also singled out. The 120,000 cubic meters of water needed to irrigate go badly in a town affected by water restrictions during the summer. It is the authorities who will have to decide whether or not to authorize this work.