Need air? Five exceptional forests to go green

THE MORNING LIST

The “exceptional forest” label rewards state-owned forests, open to all all year round, which represent a unique heritage of its kind. Five ideas for outings to explore these extraordinary places.

In the Retz forest, the rebirth of a royal estate

You just have to follow the royal avenue which rises towards the heights among the majestic trees to understand the links established between the castle of Villers-Cotterêts, in Aisne, and the forest which surrounds it. Francis I^er who built this Renaissance castle, unique in Picardy, hunted in these game-filled woods. It was in these places that he signed the ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts, in 1539, making the use of the French language obligatory in acts of administration and justice, instead of Latin. Before its recent restoration, the castle was forgotten and its forest with it.

The largest French beech forest, 13,225 hectares, nevertheless conceals wonders. Like the lay of pots, a unique underground water supply system made up of terracotta pieces to collect water in the forest and lead it to the castle. “Even though there are no streams in this forest, you can hear the water flowing in the meadow! »underlines Joël Linte, head of the Villers-Cotterêts territorial unit at the National Forestry Office (ONF).

For four centuries, foresters have been leading the forest into “cathedral” high forests – a delicate management consisting of letting trees age over several centuries – of beech, a species now threatened by climate change. To give this heritage a future, they are embarking on diversification by planting sessile oaks and downy oaks, cedars and laricio pines.

At Mont Aigoual, scientists who are pioneers in reforestation

It took intuition to make Mount Aigoual, which peaks at 1,567 m, between the Cévennes and the Causses, an open-air laboratory to study the forest and the climate. In the middle of the 19th century^e century, extremely deforested, it is nothing more than a bare massif, exposed to extreme weather conditions, heavy rains and violent winds as well as summer droughts.

Georges Fabre (1844-1911), water and forest engineer, worked to restore it. He also created a meteorological observatory at the summit (today called the “Climatograph”) to collect data on the mountain climate and adapt the plantations, today recognized by the World Meteorological Organization as one of three French sites reference.

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