The text, which aims to better protect biodiversity, notably defines new models of fences better integrated in the natural environment.
MO12345LEMONDE with AFP
This is a considerable change for the protection of biodiversity. Parliament definitively adopted, Wednesday, January 25, a text to fight high fences in natural spaces, especially in Sologne, in order to better protect fauna and fight against the excesses of certain hunting practices.
The Assembly voted without modification, by ninety-eight votes against two a bill by Senator Jean-Noël Cardoux (Les Républicains). “This is an important moment for our biodiversity,” assured the secretary of state in charge of ecology, Bérangère Couillard. This text aims to “put an end to more than 3,000 kilometers of fences that have devastated the landscapes of our Sologne and distorted whole sections of our woods and our forests in many departments”.
In practice, it prohibits fences installed after 2005 (the year of the law relating to the development of rural areas) and exceeding 1.20 meters high. The bill defines new models of fences better integrated into the natural environment and prohibits stapling (food for wild animals) and the sharpening in hermetic hunting enclosures.
between 3,000 and 5,000 kilometers of fences in Sologne
The fences will have to spare the passage of fauna to the ground. The text provides that they cannot injure or serve to trap game. In order to prevent a “living ball-trap by which animals are killed without any chance of escaping,” said rapporteur Richard Ramos, MoDem deputy. However, there are exceptions for high fences aimed at protecting the roads, railways or forest regeneration.
In Sologne, the fences, sometimes enhanced with barbed wire to better contain the deer, have multiplied in recent years, with between 3,000 and 5,000 kilometers of enclosure which extend on this territory. The phenomenon extends more and more to other regions, from Picardy to Landes, via Normandy or Brenne.
The Renaissance deputy François Cormier-Bouligeon claimed a fight against the “large owners Solognots Engorillars”: “We were the David against the Goliath!” “We concerted, gathered and mobilized both hunters and non-chasers , contemplative walkers, athletes, elected officials, “he said. The text had received the support of the National Federation of Hunters.
To compensate for the lowering of fences and encourage their disappearance, the bill creates a fourth class ticket (flat -rate fine of 135 euros, which can be reduced or increased) for penetration into a rural or forestry private property, a measure very criticized by the left.