Legal battle in Gironde over the management of municipal forests

In Gironde, the pine forests are sacred. They are the pride of private owners and the communities who preserve them from generation to generation, sometimes since the Middle Ages.

But, for several years, the State has become increasingly present in forest management. A desire which reached its climax in 2020, via a decree signed in 2020 by Julien Denormandie, then Minister of Agriculture, to require several municipalities to hand over the management of their forests to the ONF in the name of the general interest.

In the municipalities of Audenge, Teich and Andernos-les-bains, this decision caused an outcry. The three local authorities engaged in a legal battle, which began in 2022, to win their case.

“We have always managed our forest, it is recognized as well managed and is sometimes even a textbook in the scientific community. This unilateral and top-down decision of a minister who did not even come to take an interest in our…