Forest of war

One called Forêts of war the restored Forêt S or recreate in France on old forests, or fields or villages destroyed by the First World War, primarily on the Red zone (after-effects of war). They are mainly located in the department of the Meuse and moindrement in the Pas-de-Calais (Forest of Vimy) and the Somme. These zones have after the war preempted by the State with compensation for the owners or their beneficiaries.

The expression indicates the domanial public forests rather, but of the communal or private forests were also concerned.

More largely, the concept of forest of war evokes also the depreciated wood which of it was drawn during the period from restoration 1918-1930, and the Bois grapeshot that it is still found there, or that one finds in other forests (of old the " zone jaune") who requires precautions of exploitation and an adapted material of sawmill.

Wood grapeshots coming from some of these forests are depreciated because being able to contain awkward or dangerous metal objects for the Scierie S, which for some use metal detectors then. Wood could also sometimes contain some Polluant S related to the after-effects of war.

Meusien example

The Meuse gathers in 5 zones 15.672 ha of forests of war , among which only 5.700 hectares (that is to say approximately 1/3 of the surface) were wooded in 1914. In fact are, it according to the official evaluations of the time approximately 20.000 ha which would have being (Re) wooded in the Meuse so much the grounds had been degraded there by the engagements, but the Loi of April 24th, 1923 imposed a revision of compartmental on exproprier in order to encouraging the return of agriculture (or to reduce the costs of restoration?), which reduced approximately 5.500 ha the effort of creation of forests of war in this department. It took several decades to plant these forests (where the natural Régénération was not encouraged or was accepted). The majority of these trees are not 90 years old and thus are not exploited yet, except by cuts of maintenance or breaks.

Tourism

These forests and that of Verdun particularly belong to the high-places of tourism of memory. Certain zones are not opened with the public, nor with the exploitation, not having been sufficiently déminées, in Vimy for example or having been preserved at use of military camp.

Environment

The First World War generated many environmental impacts, physics and/or ecological, direct and/or indirect, immediate and/or differed on water, the air, the grounds and the ecosystem S. One of the major after-effects for the forests of war is the still massive presence in these forests of ammunition " conventional " or " chemical " not-exploded, lost, stored or sometimes immersed, constant source of Risk and Danger of Pollution induced by the ammunition . This pollution would then come to be added to the old repercussions of the combat of 1914-1918 which dispersed in the Environnement and in particular in the atmosphere of gigantic quantities of Plomb, mercury, Arsenic and pollutant gases of combat which one knows little what they became. These poisons are often not dégradables and sometimes bioaccumulable. Mercury and other heavy metals can affect health, including the reproductive health of many animals, and that of human which consume them.

With climate warming, one can fear an increase in the fire hazard whose consequences can be very worsened in these forests.

It is it should be noted that in Germany, to retimber with few means (following the two wars), an original school of sylviculture was created based on the imitation of the processes of forest impact strength; to see Prosilva.

Tentative conclusion

For its vegetable component, the young forest reconstituted after war showed an astonishing capacity of Résilience on the most upset grounds, constituting new facies, named “polémosylvofaciès” by Jean-Paul Amat who studied them in France within the framework of his thesis (CNRS). The majority of the animal species strongly do not seem to have suffered from the chemical after-effects of the war, but one does not have ecotoxicological state of the places, nor of studies of futurology published on becoming it in the environment of the conventional Munition S (and chemical) and of the Déchet S of war whose legal status is not clear, and who can for a long time (centuries and millenia) pollute the sites, grounds and sediments of these areas or the places where they were transported or treated. However, it is not - according to the experts - that with the XXIe century that the immersed and buried shells, corroded by the Corrosion should start to release their toxic contents. The impacts of these escapes do not seem to be studied in experiments nor even modelled.

The metal detectors not being available in the years 1920, the désobusage was only surface. In the grounds of the forests of war, there remains million shell and small ammunition and billion balls of Shrapnel S, which are now often under the roots of the trees, inaccessible. These forests will thus undergo still a long time the physical after-effects of the war, which without affecting their financial asset (sites of the memory), could in the long term affect their economic value. These Polluant S, if they still have few visible impacts on the flora (except very locally and with very high amounts), is nevertheless toxic for fauna and the Man (with very low dose for some). They can be bioaccumulés by the Food chain, but one clearly does not seem to have sought if they are accumulated by the trees, in wood, the sheets, fruits, barks, etc or how they circulate or not in the trophic Réseau and the ecosystem S.

The livestock and vegetable products, the Mushroom S or the ground resulting from the forests of war are potentially polluted by the Plomb, the Arsenic, the mercury, or other metals like by various chemical compounds.

Today or in the future, the consumption of mushrooms, game or perhaps of food cooked with the wood fire (with wood having absorbed for example lead) could cause intoxication. One of the origins of the lead high rate of the wines (first source of lead in the food of French according to the conference of consensus on the Lead poisoning of Lille, in 2003) remains badly explained. Could the desorbed lead of the wood of the barrels of oak, to some extent coming from the repercussions of the wars be in question?

See too

External bonds

Ex of mine clearance in Red zone of After-effect of war 14-18.

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