Soon, if the stars align, bison will live happily wild in a large forest in eastern France. They will come across large deer, wild boars galore, will be flown over by birds of prey, flee the presence of bears, probably also that of wolves but never that of man since he will not have his place there. In the shade of tall trees, flora and fauna will flourish without any human intervention, as they do in such rare places on Earth.
This is not a utopia but a very real project: the restoration in Western Europe of a primary forest, as in ancient times. A forest where trees grow freely and where the soil regenerates with the decomposition of fallen branches and trunks.
On the Old Continent, there is only one left, the Bialovèse forest, which extends over 142,000 hectares in Poland, on the border with Belarus, and is threatened by the current Polish government. The new forest would take place over 70,000 hectares, or seven times the area of intramural Paris. The place remains to be defined, Franco-Belgian Ardennes or Franco-German Vosges.
Many obstacles
On January 5, the Elysée and Matignon received the project leaders to discuss and, according to them, give them their support. In autumn 2022, Frans Timmermans, Vice-President of the European Commission, welcomed the initiative: “Your project is of particular importance in the context of a real ecological transition, as conceived by the European Green Deal [qui vise la fin des émissions nettes de gaz à effet de serre d’ici à 2050]. »
The Walloon Minister for the Environment, Céline Tellier, also took up her pen to underline the interest of the dossier “in scientific, institutional and political circles”, confirming “his pioneering and ambitious character”. As for the new president (various right) of the Grand-Est region Franck Leroy, he also supports this project “very ambitious”.
“Francis Hallé is a revolutionary who dares to dream out loud of a new era, a world populated by tall trees that even occupy the center of towns. » Ignacio Abella, researcher
The difficulties that remain to be resolved are many: delimitation of the territory, agreement between two countries, legal framework, compensation of foresters, financing… But nothing scares the man who carries the project at arm’s length: the botanist and biologist Francis Hallé . His Spanish colleague Ignacio Abella, an eminent researcher and writer, said of him: “Francis is a revolutionary who dares to dream out loud of a new era, a world populated by tall trees that even occupy the center of cities. Whole, happy trees. He dreams of primary forests that would give us back the reason we have lost. »
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