Threatened by climate change, France's forests need billions of euros to adapt

France needs to invest up to 10 billion euros over ten years to adapt its forests to climate change by planting trees and better managing the land, the government has said.

An oak falling in the Forest of Berce in the Loire region. Millions of hectares of French forests are in need of regeneration in the face of the heat and effects of climate change. © Thibault Camus/AP

Introducing a report on the state of France’s forests, Agriculture Minister Marc Fesneau on Wednesday evoked the need for intervention on “more than a million hectares” of forest, at a cost of eight to ten billion euros over the next decade. 

The cost will be shared between the state and private property owners. Some 3.4 million private citizens own 70 percent of France’s forestland, according to the report, which described an alarming threat from climate change. 

In the next ten years, the effects of climate change, including heat and droughts, will require “voluntary action” on at least 15 percent of France’s forest land, or 2.6 million acres, in addition to the 500,000 acres that are usually renewed in existing management plans.  

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Heat weakens trees 

Extreme heat weakens trees, and with increasingly strong and frequent hot weather episodes, some 30 percent of forest tree species could disappear by 2050, according to the ecological transition ministry. 

Trees are carbon sinks, absorbing carbon in the air and storing them in their trunks. As they disappear, they store less carbon, making it even more difficult for France to respect its carbon commitments. 

Fesneau said he would like to increase the government’s 150-million-euro commitment to reforesting in 2023, with a dedicated permanent fund to cover efforts as of next year. 

This photograph taken on July 26, 2023, shows young Atlas Cedar trees in Tigy, in central France, where an experiment to plant more drought-resistant trees is underway. © GUILLAUME SOUVANT / AFP

Both he and Sarah El Haïry, the newly appointed junior minister for biodiversity, visited a parcel of forest in Tigy, in the Loiret department, near Orleans.

This is part of an experiment that involves planting downy oak and cedar trees, both of which have been shown to better withstand drought than the sessile oak that is traditionally found there. 

Fesneau said that the ministry would be providing support to public and private seed and plant growers to find better adapted varieties, like linden, maple and sycamore trees that have been planted recently in forests managed by the state. 

People to plant trees  

Beyond the availability of the plans is the availability of labour. A lack of people to plant and manage the forests is “the biggest limiting factor” according to the report, as France will need to see a 50 percent increase in manpower to plan the number of trees needed. 

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“We really need to remotivate forest owners,” said Roland de Lary, the director general of the National centre for forest property, which represents individual owners of forestland. 

“We need to provoke owners and say, you know, the forest is worth something. It is worth something in terms of the environment, it is worth something economically. It is worth something for your descendants, your children.” 

(with newswires)