Landes forest

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The Landes forest in Gascony (las Lanas in the Occitan language) is the largest forest in Europe.

Contents 1 Geography 2 Plantation 3 History 4 Industry 5 Sources

[edit] Geography

The Landes forest covers a large portion of Landes and Gironde, two of the Departments of France. It also spills over into parts of Lot-et-Garonne and Gers. Several rivers flow from this region, including the Leyre, the Boudigau, the Ciron, and Gat mort.

[edit] Plantation

The forest is mostly composed of Pinus pinaster. Unlike many other European forests, the Landes forest is almost entirely planted and used for industrial purposes. This massive pine plantation was begun in the 18th century in Pays de Buch, a region of Gascony, to stop erosion and cleanse the soil. There are several easily observable consequences of the forest having begun as a plantation:

• Groups of trees that were planted at the same time all have the same age and size, which is unlike the growth pattern in a primary forest.
• The groups of trees are partitioned by broad cuts which were meant to limit forest fires and make it easier for firefighters to move through the forest. These pathways divide the forest into kilometers and are known as fire-belts.
• Equipment is readily available to help fight forest fires, such as water storage basins and pathways.
• The number and severity of forest fires has considerably decreases since the last disasters of the 1950s and 1960s.
• While walking through the forest, visitors find signs of clearings that have been cut away, particularly the stocks of wood that have been cut away along the pathways.

[edit] History

The biggest part of the region that is now occupied by the Landes forest was swampy and sparsely inhabited until the 19th century. In this time period the people of Landes used stilt walking to move around in the marshy terrain. However, the forest was planted to rehabilitate the landscape and play an important economic role in this region that was not very developed.

In the 1970s, certain parts of the forest gave way to intensive farmland (for corn in particular) without losing their traditional nature.

Today the Landes forest clings to three départements (Landes, Gironde et Lot-et-Garonne). Its surface area is estimated at around a million hectares, of which 9/10 is exclusively devoted to maritime pines (Pinus pinaster). But in the center of this pinhadar (a group of planted pines in the Gascon language) there is a natural forest that comes from the post-glacial timbering of this part of the south-west. There the pines skirt other species: oak, alder, birch, willow, and holly. This type of forest is most frequent along streams, where the drainage is particularly good. It was probably more extended until the Middle Ages, after which a colder, more humid climate and increased deforestation tied to extending pastoral activities and the need for wood for construction brought about the recession of the forest between the 15th and 18th centuries.

[edit] Industry

In the first part of the 20th century the industries of wood, paper, and pine resin took off, and they became important players in the regional economy.

An entire industry is organized around wood:

• forestry
• sawmills
• paper mills
• shaping and craftsmanship of wood (parquetry, joinery, etc.)
• packing and transformation of paper

However, the resin-collecting industry, which required hard labor, has almost completely disappeared under the profit of more modern chemical processes such as transformation/distillation. DRT is a company that uses the byproducts of the pine exploitation in this region.

Before the mid-19th century, only the extensive breeding of sheep on the moors allowed the production of manure to permit the cultivation of rye, mainly with a practice on balk, to limit the impact of moisture in winter. The disappearance of the moors by general sowing of pines brought about the end of this culture and the stereotypical image of shepherds on stilts. The next image of this region will be the resin-collector with his tools.

[edit] Sources

This article is being translated from the original French article as it appears on November 11, 2006. This article cites the following source:

• SARGOS, Jacques, Histoire de la Forêt landaise - Du désert à l'âge d'or, Bordeaux, L'horizon chimérique, 1997, rééd. en 2004.