the government presents a “pact” to plant 50,000 km of new hedges by 2030

“Stop the bleeding” and plant “in quantity and quality” : the government presented, Friday September 29, a “pact” so that France will have around 800,000 km of hedges in 2030, or 50,000 more than today. Hedges, however, provide many services: they preserve biodiversity, protect against soil erosion and water runoff, store carbon, shelter livestock from the sun… The 2024 draft budget of the Ministry of Agriculture Agriculture is therefore planning an additional 110 million euros to replant hedges, which continue to disappear from the landscape, in particular to facilitate work in the fields.

A ministerial report gave the measure of the emergency in April: more than 20,000 km of hedges are still lost each year and plantations are far from compensating, with only 3,000 km per year. Of the twenty thousand kilometers of hedge lost per year, “it is estimated that 5,000 km were torn up by communities or farmers and 15,000 km were destroyed” lack of maintenance, specifies the office of Marc Fesneau, the Minister of Agriculture. For “stop the bleeding”, “not only do we have to plant, but we also have to manage what already exists”.