VSach year in France, 20,000 to 30,000 hectares of land are artificialized, the equivalent of the forest of Fontainebleau. However, soils fulfill multiple functions that are vital to us: regulation of the water cycle, absorption of carbon and heat, agronomic quality… Their artificialization reinforces and accelerates the effects of climate change while increasing our collective vulnerability. This is why we are campaigning for a paradigm shift: moving from land to “living soils”, with rights and duties that confirm their status as common property.
68% of artificial soils are used to build housing and 25% for economic development. These figures are all the more worrying as the dynamics of soil artificialization is four times faster than the evolution of the population, and concentrated in areas where the demand for housing is lowest. This paradox can be explained by development and urban planning models which consider the ground solely as land rent: virgin land is extremely profitable for its owner, when it is possible to build on it. Land is also an important source of revenue for communities.
Moving from real estate to living soils means implementing development and urban planning policies that take into account the existing and the quality of soils in the territory. Soil and nature should not be the adjustment variable for projects, nor a means of financing urban projects and public facilities.
Fantasy dynamics
A step forward was taken with the so-called “Climate and Resilience” law of July 2021, which recognizes the multifunctionality of soils in the definition of the zero net artificialisation (ZAN) objective. It is a question of stopping all artificialization of the soil by 2050, while leaving the possibility of compensating the residual impacts.
Despite this progress which tends to recognize the rarity and complexity of soils, vagueness persists on the trajectories to be put in place to achieve zero net artificialization by 2050. The ZAN objective remains too technical, the definition of artificialized soils incomprehensible, monitoring methods still diverse, rendering the territories powerless in the face of the objectives to be achieved.
Added to this confusion are contradictory injunctions for elected officials, caught up in an imaginary attractive territory, which must attract young households and cutting-edge businesses through the construction of housing and economic activity zones. However, economic attractiveness is not necessarily a desirable horizon for all territories. Another territorial development is possible, which starts from the existing and real and not imagined demographic and economic dynamics.
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