A forest (illustration).

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KONRAD K./SIPA

  • A demonstration by opponents of a mega-sawmill project in the Hautes-Pyrénées takes place this Sunday at Place du Capitole.

  • This project is intended according to the community of municipalities of Lannemezan "to revive the forestry industry in the Pyrenees".

  • The Florian company, which carries the project, should cut down 540,000 m3 of beech trees each year to run its sawmill.

Obviously, it's a story that smells of fir… This Sunday, at 11 am in Toulouse, on the Place du Capitole, at the call of the collective “Touche Pas à Ma Forêt” which brings together around forty trade union and political organizations and associations, as well as all people who have a minimum of sympathy for nature in general and trees in particular are invited to come and dress up as a tree for a die-in.

This rally, during which people simulate deaths by lying on the ground, is indeed planned to protest against a mega-sawmill project which should point its nose at the foot of the Pyrenees and attack entire forests of beech trees.

Beech or not beech ...

In 2019, the community of municipalities of the Plateau de Lannemezan, in the Hautes-Pyrénées, gave carte blanche to one of the world leaders in hardwood processing, the Italian group Florian, to come and set up by 2022. , a mega-sawmill in Lannemezan.

This 11 million euro territorial project intended, according to the community, to "revive the forestry industry in the Pyrenees", should generate 25 direct jobs and around a hundred workers.

Not all trees will be affected, only beech, which we find today throughout the Pyrenean chain and which can live up to 478 years and reach 40 meters high, is targeted.

To make quality furniture and floors, Florian will need to obtain each year 50,000 m3 of the best pieces of beech wood (those located at the bottom of the trunk).

This means that 540,000 m3 of beech trees will have to be felled annually throughout the chain.

Or three times what is taken today.

For the opponents who will demonstrate this Sunday this project is "an ecological aberration" which will also directly impact the ten sawmills which still exist in the Pyrenees.

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  • Demonstration

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  • Toulouse

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  • Pyrenees