Dumerous Heads of State have promised to plant millions of trees during COP27, which was held in Egypt in November 2022. The announcement by the President of the French Republic, ahead of this global event, is by far a of the most ambitious: to plant a billion trees by 2032. Trees and forests are regularly presented as the nature-based solution, which makes sense, to offset and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. greenhouse and other evils produced by our economies.
This is what could be called the Elzéard Bouffier syndrome, named after the hero of the short story The Man Who Planted Trees (1953), by Jean Giono: all you have to do is plant trees to save the world. This is in no way to denigrate the merit of Elzéard Bouffier, who actually saved his region from desertification resulting from an unsustainable use of forest resources by planting trees, at the cost of a stubborn effort of several decades.
There are, of course, regions of the world in which the forest area has been in clear and constant decline for decades, as the FAO figures clearly show, in particular to the benefit of agriculture and urbanization. This is not the case in Europe or in France.
The forest in France has doubled in area since 1850
The French forest has a triple management objective: production of wood, protection and recreation. It covers 31% of the metropolitan area and its area has been constantly increasing for almost two centuries, despite the fires. Its surface area has more than doubled since 1850, and over the last thirty years alone it has increased by almost 3 million hectares (source IGN).
The increase in forest owes little to major reforestation programs like the National Forest Fund (FFN), which was active for fifty years after the Second World War. It is mainly the result of natural regeneration, in particular due to the colonization of abandoned agricultural areas in favor of rural abandonment.
In France, plantation forests represent only 13% of the forest area. Their main objective is the production of wood material. Planting a billion trees in ten years, is that « possible », as the President of the Republic asserts? And if so, is it really a good idea?
The metropolitan forest covers 17.1 million hectares
There are many areas at stake in France, in particular the forests which are currently dying and which could represent up to 7% of forest areas in 2050, according to the climate change mitigation scenario monitored at the global level according to the association Canopy, i.e. 1.2 million hectares (the metropolitan forest covers 17.1 million hectares).
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