Landes de Gascogne
The Landes de Gascogne ("Heidelandschaft der Gascogne "), also Forêt des Landes ("Heidewald") or simply les Landes (the "Heidegebiete"; the underlying word lande is perhaps related to Celtic landa : undeveloped land, field) in southwestern France are the largest contiguous forest in Western Europe. Today's forest area is a defining part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and gave the Landes department its name. The forest consists mainly of maritime pines .
geography
The Forêt des Landes takes up a very large part of the French departments Gironde and Landes and a small part of the Lot-et-Garonne department . In the west the forest borders on the dunes of the Atlantic coast . The river Leyre rises in the middle of the forest .
In contrast to many other forests in Europe, the forêt of the country was created almost entirely by man, in particular to drain the swamps and moors that previously dominated the area, but also for economic use. Pines began to be planted in the Gironde area in the 18th century. The maritime pine was mainly used. The basis for the use of the maritime pine at that time was that it is a native tree and the use of seagrass to protect the shifting dunes, such as B. stopping the Dune du Pilat did not help. Therefore it was decided to create the forest.
In contrast to normal forests, the trees in the Forêt des Landes are all about the same age and size due to the artificial creation. The forest is divided by several firebreaks in order to avoid a large-scale forest fire . Furthermore, several water basins and other equipment are available in the forest for fire fighting and an extensive network of hiking trails enables the foresters to regularly check the forest for potential dangers. As a result, the number of devastating forest fires has fallen sharply since the 1960s. The protection of the forests is subject to the DCFI Aquitaine, due to the fires of 1947 and 1949, fire prevention and fire fighting became mandatory.
Since the 1980s, the Landes pine forest has suffered greater damage than any other forest area in France. The causes of the damage are the largely homogeneous tree population ( monoculture ) and the occurrence of local stone due to the forest cover of a heathland.
literature
- François Sargos: Forêt des landes de Gascogne, une nature secrète , Editions Sud Ouest, Bordeaux, 2008, ISBN 978-2-87901-873-7
- Jacques Sargos, Histoire de la Forêt landaise - Du désert à l'âge d'or , L'horizon chimérique, Bordeaux, 1997, ISBN 2-907202-66-9
- Christian Maizeret, Les Landes de Gascogne , Delachaux et Niestlé, Paris, 2005, ISBN 2-603-01330-0
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Johann Jakob Egli : Nomina geographica. Language and factual explanation of 42,000 geographical names of all regions of the world. Friedrich Brandstetter, 2nd edition Leipzig 1893, p. 523 f.
- ↑ a b ARTE MEDIA LIBRARY | ARTE | The Value of Forests - The Pine Forest of Southwest France. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 22, 2017 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ DFCI Aquitaine - Historique de l'association. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 20, 2017 ; accessed on March 22, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
