Klaus Ravages Les Lande
The future of the forest depends on compensation
On 24 January les Landes was at the epicentre of a storm which has left behind it a picture of desolation reminiscent of an earthquake. In some areas, Hurricane Klaus brought winds in excess of 170km/h, causing immense damage to the timber which had already been suffering under the ill wind of the credit crunch for some months.

In some places in Aquitaine, wind speeds were so high that they jammed the anemometers, so they might have been still higher than at first thought. A speed of 183 km/h was recorded in Perpignan and 216km/h was recorded in the eastern Pyrenees. One month after the storm, forestry professionals are in a position once more to start managing the forest, but the financial questions still dominate discussions. First assessments of the devastation Ten days after the storm, the first damage assessments were published.

These showed the extent of the disaster that had struck the forests in Aquitaine, and more particularly les Landes. Almost half of the 1252 million hectares of forest in Aquitaine was affected. 223,000 hectares had suffered damage in excess of 40%. By volume, some 40 million cubic metres were damaged including 24 million cubic metres of windblow and 5.6 million cubic metres of wind snap.

Proportionately, the situation is worse for the Maritime pine, covering 785,000 hectares of Aquitaine. Over 60% of the area was affected, with 202,000 hectares suffering damage of over 40%. By volume, 37.1 million cubic metres, or 31% of the volume before the storm, has
been lost. For Maritime pine, 70% of the damage was windblow (23 million cubic metres) with 5.3 million cubic metres being snapped.

The initial study indicated that, of the timber destroyed, 17.8 million cubic metres consisted of large and very large timber, 15.1 million cubic metres were of medium sized trees, and 4.4 million cubic metres were small. In percentages, large timber accounted for half (49%) and average wood represented over a third (38%) of the volume destroyed. Tight economic climate Within a few hours, the equivalent of five years’ harvesting had fallen. But figures, however impressive, should not obscure the human tragedy and financial distress of many foresters and members of the forestry community – such as the Pouydesseaux owner who lost, in an instant, 300 hectares of pine worth around e700,000, which represented 25 years of working towards building an inheritance.

Then there was the town of Labrit which owned 595 hectares of forest and lost 365 of them, completely destroyed, representing a loss to the community estimated at e1.32 million over the next ten years. The economic consequences of the storm, assessed by industry players
and residents of les Landes, must also be seen against an economic background already tinged with gloom and anxiety. The planned replanting after hurricanes Lothar and Martin in December 1999 has still not been completed, and since that time the département found
itself again being battered by very strong winds in the summer of 2003. Last autumn the wood and paper industries started showing clear signs of slow-down (some 25% decrease inactivity), both locally and in Spain – a very important market for Landes timber.

Unanimity for compensation Very quickly, regional and general councils unlocked emergency aid for the worst situations, and in the following weeks, funds for specific activities (e20 million in the region to extract timber for example). On 4 February, Minister of Agriculture,
Michel Barnier, announced a plan of aid totalling nearly e1 billion. For the forest, it includes a e600 million loan and about e80 million in grants for equipment. However, leaders in the industry have agreed to assess the damage at about e1.5 billion. Thus they expect government compensation totalling some e600 million to cover the costs of clearing and replanting. Without the payment of this sum, the forest sector as a whole has decided not to
intervene in the land affected, with all consequences that holds for the future of the forest.
One month to the day after the storm, with access once more available, the industry was awaiting another meeting with the minister to find a compensation scheme (which apparently cannot be given a name for European reasons) and to start the work. At this point the
first spring forest fires had broken out – another worry foresters could do without.

The post-storm view ...
Even with e11.7 million in sales and e7.4 million investment in 2008, 5200 members of the Cuma agricultural cooperative in Landes, noting a drop in revenue due to a sharp fall in grain prices, planned to explore the potential of forestry work. Klaus accelerated these thoughts. “We received a lot of requests from farmers and we are exploring investment opportunities,” said Mathieu Lalanne of Cuma. “Immediate requests relate to grapples, winches and trailers. Also negotiations for a tractor with a reversible seat and a drum chipper are well advanced. “The storm damage is accelerating the trend towards working with wood energy, as many farmers and communities intend to acquire suitable boilers. In addition, Elyo and Total have been given a green light to build an electrical power station using agricultural and forestry biomass at Lacq in Béarn.

“But our investments will be tailored to the size of our yards, not to large-scale forestry. In the immediate future, it is the recovery of trees and the use of timbers, especially for agriculture, which is on the agenda.” Forestry contractors have already been engaged in clearing roads and in opening routes to hotels and campsites. The urgency of these works and the colossal opportunities they represent have persuaded some fifteen concerns in the sector who are engaged in other occupations, such as pruning, to move into harvesting.

Additionally, EDT – Entrepreneurs des Territoires – has opened a labour pool which has received 447 entries, almost a third of them coming from abroad (mainly Germany). (See www.e-d-t.org.) Will these offers be taken up? Probably not to the extent that the applicants hope. The capacity of local contractors is very different to ten years ago: in a decade, the number of harvesters has grown from around 50 to more than 250 overall. In addition, the poor economic situation had already begun to affect activity levels during the
last months of 2008, though without many of the 600 companies being lost. This is on top of a slowdown in logging over the last three or four years.

On the ground, after evaluating the volumes of fallen timber, the search has begun to solve the problem of storing the millions of cubic metres to be removed. Wet storage areas are among the solutions being explored. Denis Gileta Article printed by courtesy of le Journal
de la Mécanisation Forestière. Our thanks to its editor, Stéphane Augris.

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