Around 60,000 trees will be planted by 2022 in the Ploërdut forest in Morbihan.

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EcoTree

  • Abandoned, the forest of Ploërdut in Morbihan will be the subject of a vast reforestation program.

  • Ovo Energy France will finance the planting of 60,000 trees by 2022.

  • This initiative is the result of a partnership with the Brest-based start-up EcoTree, which buys degraded forests before selling trees individually to individuals or companies.

Spread over 11.6 hectares in central Brittany, the Ploërdut forest near Pontivy (Morbihan) is not in good health.

Abandoned for several years by an owner not knowing what to do with it, it is even seriously degraded.

This is unfortunately not an exception in France, where nearly three quarters of forests are owned by individuals.

It is often a family transmission and many of these owners do not necessarily have the means or the inclination to reforest or maintain them.

Based on this observation, the start-up EcoTree was created in 2016 in Brest with the mission of putting the French forest massif back on its feet, the third largest in Europe.

For this, it buys abandoned forests or agricultural wasteland to be reforested before selling individual trees on its site.

"The challenge is to give these forests a second life while raising awareness among the population", underlines Annabelle le Corfec, director of innovation at EcoTree.

A blend of essences with sessile oak or Scots pine

For five years, no less than a million trees have been planted and maintained by the start-up, which has sold them to 40,000 individuals and a thousand companies.

Launched at the end of 2019, the green energy supplier Ovo Energy France, a subsidiary of the British group of the same name, was won over by the initiative.

Committed to a carbon neutrality objective, the company thus comes to the bedside of the Ploërdut forest.

By 2022, it will finance the planting of 60,000 trees on a large wasteland in order to reforest the Breton forest, in particular with sessile oak and Scots pine.

"We try each time to promote the mixture of species with hardwoods and conifers," says Annabelle Le Corfec.

If they wish, Ovo Energy France's customers will also be able to choose the species of their tree and find out about it via a digital platform created by EcoTree.

A forest management company, the Breton start-up does not stop at planting trees.

It also ensures the maintenance and preservation of existing trees.

“Reforesting a forest takes time, it's work that is done over time with our partners,” says the innovation manager.

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