Poor old France. For long held out to us as a model in the forestry line, with something like 25 per cent of her surface covered with trees - and then the storms around Christmas felled or tore out by the roots or seriously damaged something like the half of her riches. Lessons are being learned. Bernard Goury, Director-General of the National Forestry Office, points out that for at least a decade, his organisation has been quietly doing what critics are now demanding should be done: that fewer conifers should be planted, fewer trees in perfect alignment for easier felling and loading for transport - but also therefore more vulnerable to windthrow. Also that more thought should be given to biodiversity. Incidentally, it is said that three-quarters of forests are in private hands - there are 3.7 million proprietors (can it be?). Looking on the optimistic side, the loss of so many trees (and Germany had something similar in 1990 according to Le Monde) offers an opportunity to work out a new policy of afforestation. Some experts lay stress on natural regeneration and it so happens that in Lorraine, a region which suffered badly, the autumn was outstanding for its harvest of acorns. Le Monde also reports that in the Morvan district (roughly central France), the conifers (les resineux or the resinous trees) suffered particularly. "It is logical that they suffered most; they have a shallow root system and keep their leaves in winter, so offering more resistance to the wind," says the man in charge of the environmental Nature Park of the Morvan. "The over-population, for economic reasons, of these trees made a veritable screen," he says, which the wind swept away. Investigations will go on for long. What will be done will not appear for some time. But hard luck France.
In the meantime, many who visit the south of France or other Mediterranean countries love those handsome pines which, as they grow, are aptly called pins parasols - umbrella or parasol pines. These could be very susceptible to such winds. They grow well enough here, but not so many reach the dimensions of the Mediterranean specimens. Imagine, one of them stood at a roadside giving great shade and much admired. When the authorities came to make a huge roadway of it, widening enormously, the tree was so venerable that they could not fell it. They left it in what was now the middle of the new road. Reminds you of the Big Tree at Shankill, near Dublin, which was eventually taken down. Y