On this road that leads to the ocean, the view has never been so clear. The Dune du Pilat stands before the amazed eyes of those who take the RD218 again. The road that connects the most visited site in New Aquitaine (2 million visitors per year) and the seaside town of Biscarrosse was reopened on December 17. Here, almost everything burned in the fires which, this summer, ravaged the precious common good of the Arcachon basin: its pine forest. “We see the closed faces of those who return”, says Patrick Davet, the LR mayor of the town of La Teste-de-Buch, greeting his constituents on the side of the road. ” Somewhere we live again “, adds the city councilor, while looking with sadness at this devastated forest that he has always been around. ” But the strawberry trees and the fern grow back already “, he continues, looking for a bit of optimism.
Going deeper into the forest, in fact, a few green shoots brighten up the place. Trees, injured in the trunk but with green tops, remind us that nature is trying to regain its rights. The clearing of dead and living wood is linked, in this forest shared between a state part and another user, owned by more than 300 private owners but open to the public. A forest with a special status, based on a way of working that is now unique in France, that of “bailettes and transactions”civil contract, the oldest of which dates back to 1468.
Old rights of use
At the time, the lord of Buch granted rights of use to the inhabitants (about forty families) spread over the municipalities of La Teste-de-Buch, Cazaux and Gujan-Mestras, then Arcachon and Lège-Cap. -Aglet. Thanks to this agreement, they have the possibility of collecting the dead wood, but also of cutting the oaks to heat themselves. As for the owners of plots, they can take wood for the construction of their house if they justify ten years of residence on the spot and make a written request to the general syndicates, managers of the forest. The only condition of this agreement: the wood cannot be marketed, and only the resin of the pines can be exploited. An economy that began to decline in the 1970s, before completely dying out.
Despite several attempts, this operation has never been repealed. In this used forest, maintained year after year by owners who are sometimes absent, the fire raged in July, destroying 80% of what everyone – residents, scientists and elected officials – agree to define as a “treasure of biodiversity”, which evolved at its own pace without any real outside intervention. Here, there is no timber exploitation strategy since it is not marketed. No strategy at all, leaving plenty of room for flora and fauna to develop freely.
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