Macron’s billion trees target leaves scientists and NGOs sceptical

French President Emmanuel Macron has pledged to plant one billion trees in France over 10 years, but environmentalists and researchers question whether this programme will achieve its stated biodiversity and climate objectives.

Macron announced the plan at the Conference on Climate Change in Egypt in November 2022 (COP27). The target is equivalent to planting around 100 million trees over an area three to four times the size of Marseille each year until 2032.

Forests have long been recognised for their potential to counter the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity. Policy-makers particularly appreciate the ability of trees to absorb carbon from the atmosphere.

In support of the president’s target, an inter-ministerial commission ‘Conseil Supérieur de la Forêt et du Bois’ published in July 2023 a report which estimated that there are between 1.5 and 1.7 million hectares of potential forest areas to be renewed in France. 

However, some scientists and environmental NGOs fear that Macron’s initiative is too focused on the commercial benefits of forestry, to the detriment of the programme’s stated ecological objectives.

Commercial forestry and sustainability

While trees absorb carbon and provide habitats for nature, the impact of commercially farmed trees on climate and biodiversity objectives is more complex and dependent upon how the trees are grown and harvested.

Commercial practices such as planting only one tree species and ‘clear cutting’ – harvesting all the trees in an area at the same time – can have a detrimental impact on local biodiversity. Trees ill-suited to local conditions are less likely to survive to maturity, the stage with the greatest biodiversity and climate benefits.

How the harvested wood is used will determine a tree’s climate impact. The wood used in construction, for example, could store carbon for many years. However, if wood is burnt to produce energy, the carbon in the wood is quickly re-released back into the atmosphere.

Contested public funding

The cabinet of Marc Fesneau, the French minister for agriculture and food sovereignty, told Euractiv that 67.5 million trees had already been planted thanks to public funding.

A €250 million aid fund for public and private forest owners has been allocated for this year by the French Agriculture Ministry, through the ‘France Relance’ government investment plan. Private forest owners, who own three-quarters of France’s forests, will receive 60% of this funding.

Bruno Doucet, head of campaigns at French NGO Canopée, told Euractiv that 10,000 hectares of healthy well-established forests (including 6,500 hectares in Natura 2000 areas) were razed to benefit from this aid and replanted for industrial purposes. 

According to Canopée, this practice is widespread. A March 2022 report claimed that 87% of the projects financed by the ‘France Relance’ plan involved clear-cutting.

Contacted by Euractiv, the Ministry of Agriculture responded that where trees had been felled, this was “to stem the spread of parasites and replant species adapted to climate change”.

The public funding also requires forest owners to comply with several strict requirements to ensure the resilience of future forests – for example, there must be a management plan and a minimum diversity of tree species.

However forest owners can access this grant and cut down their trees, if this is needed for tree health reasons: because the trees are vulnerable to climate change or because of the plantation’s low economic performance. 

Natural regeneration

In France, forest cover has grown by more than 3 million hectares since 1985, driven by the natural regeneration of abandoned agricultural land.

Building on this trend, leftist opposition parliamentarian Henrik Davi called for “letting nature take its course” as a means to reforest France.

The politician –  a former director of research in forest ecology at the national research agency INRAE – also called for introducing more ‘sustainable’ forestry.

This method of maintaining forests involves reducing the density of groupings of trees in some areas, by removing only the largest or oldest trees, selecting tree species that are most resistant to France’s future climate, and allowing greater natural regeneration.

Private forest owners reject this approach, as explained by Antoine d’Amécourt, president of the sectoral association Fransylva, who told Euractiv that commercial forestry can accelerate forest regeneration and make forests more resistant to climate change.

However, calls for a more sustainable approach to forestry are being heard at the political level.

A politically diverse group of 118 parliamentarians are proposing a new law to increase the storage of carbon in French forests.

Tabled in the National Assembly in December 2023, the new rules would legally define and limit ‘clear-cutting’, and require commercial forestry to diversify their plantations.

National media reported that the government wants to act on the issue but is stuck because of disagreement between the agriculture and ecological transition ministries.

[Edited by Donagh Cagney/Zoran Radosavljevic]

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