Associations revolted by tree cutting in the Bois de Vincennes

• 20 Minutes

  went to the Bois de Vincennes to observe, at the invitation of the National Tree Monitoring Group, tree cuttings carried out by the Paris City Hall.

• 57 hectares are targeted by the town hall in 2022-2023, an operation which threatens biodiversity and risks aggravating global warming according to the association, also supported in its approach by France Nature Environnement and the naturalist Étienne Piéchaud.

• “These spaces are maintained to allow their long-term sustainability” explains to

  20 Minutes

  Christophe Najdovski, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of the revegetation of public space, green spaces and biodiversity.

It was very cold that Tuesday, in the Bois de Vincennes.

Wearing boots for some, CE1-CE2 children from a riverside school brandish rods and gardening tools, busy replanting trees.

It is an operation to bring a little biodiversity to the forest, explain agents of the Vincennes Wood Division, who supervise the operation.

“But you cut down all these trees which were doing very well, and all the others will take the wind in the face now”, storms Marie-Noëlle Bernard, of the National Tree Monitoring Group, to the agents.

This insurance expert who has become a local referent for the association for the protection of trees, came to show

the many "clear cuts" carried out by the City of Paris in the woods, which worry her.

“When we deforest, we kill animal food”

Are these cuts fair and necessary to preserve the forest?

This is essentially the question that divides two environmental associations, among others, on the one hand, and the City of Paris on the other.

According to a document that

has obtained, the administration plans to carry out "thinning" - defined by the administration as a "selective cultural operation which gradually reduces the number of stems by dosing the mixture of species" - or "releases" - i.e. operations aimed at eliminating competition from certain species according to the administration - on 49 and 16 hectares respectively for the year 2022-2023.

The quantity of felled trees is considered excessive and dangerous for the future of the Bois de Vincennes for the National Tree Monitoring Group, which considers that thinnings are nothing more than clear cuts of trees: "When we deforestation, we kill animal food, the living space of wildlife that needs to hide and feed, ”explains the local referent.

On average, about 18 hectares were "thinned" per year between 2006 and 2020, according to the arboreal management plan 2021-2035, much less than what is planned for the year 2022-2023.

But for Aurélia Chavanne, forestry engineer at the Bois de Vincennes, it is because "for 4 or 5 years the cutting operations have concerned larger trees, because these are trees that grew after the 1999 storm, but this are the same practices.

Cuts of century-old trees

In an article written in February 2022, the naturalist Etienne Piéchaud was worried about these cuts, believing that they led to a “loss of biodiversity”, regretting a “relentlessness on the birch and the Marsault willow”.

The latter trees are useful for insectivorous migratory birds such as Chiffchaff, he points out, while birch seeds are eaten by Bullfinches or Redpoll.

The naturalist also notes that cuts were made in places where a vulnerable and rare plant lived in Ile-de-France, the two-leaf squill.

And adds that we have gone so far as to cut down century-old trees.

On the spot, the cuts shown at

have a devastating effect.

“We have the impression that there were shells that fell,” comments Marie-Noëlle Bernard.

In some places, there are no trees left.

At others, only one or two specimens survived.

Operations that worry in the midst of global warming: “With the clear cuts they are making, the temperature of the wood will increase, and in fact that of the suburbs and of Paris, because the woods cool the capital.

A mature tree captures 25 kg of CO2 per year, so all these cuts are as much less CO2 captured!

exclaims Marie-Noëlle Bernard.

Cuts for the future?

To all this, what does the town hall answer?

That these cuts are made for the future.

“These spaces are maintained to allow their sustainability over the long term.

We introduce other species because that's what makes a forest strong in the long term.

This requires intervention,” explains Christophe Najdovski, Deputy Mayor of Paris in charge of revegetating public spaces, green spaces and biodiversity.

Of the 57 hectares of “thinning” or “clearings” planned, he wants to be reassuring: “It is not because you are intervening on 57 hectares that you are shaving 57 hectares.

Yes, there is indeed a decrease in afforestation, but it is temporary.

Do we need to intervene like today?

We are ready to discuss it.

But a wood needs to be maintained, we cannot leave these spaces entirely without human intervention.

»

The agents of the Bois de Vincennes Division whom we met by chance on the spot, and who are constantly on the ground with the trees, have the same vision.

“The policy we have is to have as many species as possible.

Many oaks fell during the storm, here the maple has mostly grown and we are going to uproot it to put oaks, chestnuts, hornbeams, lime trees, cherry trees in their place... It's interesting to have a diversity in species: the cherry tree has an interest for bees, like the lime tree”, explains an agent, who did not want to give his identity.

He continues: “In the event of pathogen attacks, such as soot disease on maple, if we have other species they will withstand the shock”.

"Promoting the regeneration of the forest, it promotes sustainability, it's our job", completes Michel at his side.

Two philosophies

Who's wrong, who's right ?

For the GNSA, which denounces a Bois de Vincennes transformed into "Central Park", these cuts are "a bet on the future which is at risk".

"We do not ask a forest to be at the disposal of man, it is man who puts himself at the disposal of the forest", persists Marie-Noëlle Bernard, while Christine Nedelec, President of France Nature Environnement Île-de-France, essentially quotes the botanist Francis Hallé “Let's learn to do nothing more.

»

But Christophe Najdovski trusts his agents: “It's insulting to reproach us for not knowing what an ecosystem is, we have silvicultural engineers, they know how to do their job.

I have confidence in the technicians and in their results”, he says, highlighting the results of the arboreal management plan 2006-2020, which according to him “has made it possible to increase the forest area by 58 hectares”.

The latest plan was voted almost unanimously by elected officials and experts from all sides, argues the deputy, deploring a single unfavorable vote, from France Nature Environnement.

had not on the date of publication of the article obtained confirmation of this vote, which must be the subject of a report from the Ile-de-France region.

A vote that will not prevent the two associations from demonstrating on Saturday, at 2 p.m. in Montreuil, Croix de Chavaux metro station, as far as Bagnolet, to say “stop the massacre of trees”.

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