Bordeaux inaugurates its first micro-forest intended to "break the bitumen"

"We haven't been here for a long time but we are starting to break the asphalt. It is an added value for an entire district, there is an obligation to create islands of freshness", explained the mayor of Bordeaux in front of the press after planting the first oak of this new place.

"A space of 100m2 of forest reduces the temperature in the adjacent streets by one degree", said Pierre Hurmic, recalling that "a dozen similar micro-forests" were being studied on the scale of the Bordeaux metropolitan area.

Still in the process of being planted, this 180m2 square in a residential area in the south of Bordeaux, must accommodate a very dense micro-forest made up of 600 forest plants, including 25 species of trees and around sixty different herbaceous plants, at a cost total of 50.000 euros, according to the town hall.

"Planting is an altruistic act", explains Christophe Dangles, head of the tree and forest department in Bordeaux metropolis. "We plant for the following generations", he continues, specifying that this place "imagined as a decoration" was not destined to welcome the public.

On the spot, the residents welcome this new development without real enthusiasm, at the origin of the elimination of "13 parking spaces" according to Cyrille, installed for fifteen years in the district, "not happy" to have to pay "15 euros per month to look for a "(residential) parking space.

Michel, 69, owner of a house overlooking the future micro-forest, is "rather favorable" to the project but the retiree regrets a political decision "without consultation" to plant "oaks which will take 30 years to grow".

"It will take several decades before having an adult tree", concedes Didier Jeanjean, deputy mayor in charge of nature in the city, aware of "changing habits" after "decades of car culture".

This first micro-forest is conceived as the first "variation" of the strategy of revegetation of the public space carried by Pierre Hurmic, aiming to "pass from a very mineral city to a more vegetal city".

At the end of 2020, the municipality presented its plan "Bordeaux grandeur Nature" providing in particular for the tripling of the budget devoted to plantations, set at 300.000 euros, and the protection of wasteland from concreteization.