Question 16611 — woods and forests

Summary

Ms. Gabrielle Cathala questions the Minister of Ecological Transition, Biodiversity and International Negotiations on Climate and Nature on the place given to the social, health and climatic functions of peri-urban forests in forest management choices. The Montmorency national forest, in Val-d'Oise, welcomes between 5 and 6 million visitors each year. It constitutes, in a densely populated territory urbanized, an essential space of nature, leisure, social connection and breathing. This situation concerns the peri-urban forests of Île-de-France more broadly, which attract more than 100 million visits per year and represent one of the last accessible areas of freshness and contact with living things. In a context of global warming, erosion of biodiversity and increasing episodes of extreme heat, these forests can no longer be considered as simple economic or silvicultural adjustment variables. The health benefits of forest areas are now widely documented: regular exposure to forests is associated with an improvement in psychological well-being, via a reduction in stress and anxiety. These are real public health and climate resilience infrastructures. Beyond their usefulness for human populations, the preservation of forest ecosystems, animal and plant species and their habitats also constitutes an objective of general interest in itself. Since 2018, the Montmorency forest has been facing chestnut ink disease. Faced with this situation, the National Forestry Office has initiated major sanitary logging operations, notably taking the form of clear felling followed by plantations. new species. If the need to act in the face of the disease is not contested, the methods adopted raise strong questions among associations, local elected officials, users, as well as in the scientific field. This incomprehension is all the stronger since clear felling has officially been abandoned as an ordinary method of forest management in Île-de-France, in favor of so-called “mixed cover” management. continuous ". The local press even reports that an ONF official admitted “that there have never been as many clearcuts as since we announced that they were being stopped”. Such a contradiction questions the real scope of the commitments made in terms of forest management and fuels the mistrust of residents, reinforced by the difficulties of access to information relating to the management of public forests, in particular on data relating to samples. In its decision no. 451627 of September 27, 2022, Association Mormal Forêt Agir, the Council of State nevertheless recalled that communication obligations in terms of forest management are not limited to the technical part of planning documents and that the ONF is required to communicate the environmental information that it holds, receives or establishes, subject to the legally provided limits, particularly with regard to business secrecy. This requirement is in line with article L. 212-2 of the forest code, which provides that, in forests subject to heavy public use, the preservation and improvement of the living environment of the populations constitutes a priority. The mobilization of these actors does not reflect opposition in principle to any forestry intervention. It expresses a democratic requirement: that of seeing the functions social, ecological, health and climatic aspects of peri-urban forests truly integrated into decisions. A call to save public forests in Île-de-France was supported by more than 31,000 people, around fifty organizations, more than 70 parliamentarians and several scientists. The Saint-Prix municipal council also unanimously requested increased consultation between the ONF and the various stakeholders in the development of the future development plan for the Montmorency forest. This motion has since been adopted by several other municipalities, notably Montlignon, Piscop, Andilly, Montmorency and Bouffémont, testifying to a growing territorial mobilization around these issues. This is why the MP asks the Minister how she intends to guarantee that the aforementioned functions of peri-urban forests are fully integrated into the forest management choices. She also asks whether the Government intends to strengthen the transparency of data relating to withdrawals and cuttings, as well as the effective participation of local elected officials and residents in the development of these plans. Finally, she wishes to know whether an evolution of the legislative framework is envisaged in order to explicitly recognize the specific role of peri-urban forests as infrastructure. essential to public health, social bonds, biodiversity and climate resilience.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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