THE FOREST POLICY OF FRANCE 



nished railroad ties and lumber for prosecuting the 

 great war. I doubt if the world affords a more striking 

 example of conservation. 



In the control of torrential erosion in the Alps and 

 Pyrenees, with its disastrous effects upon farm lands in 

 the valleys below, France has been confronted with a 

 far more difficult problem. The difficulty lies in the fact 

 that the problem is, at bottom, one in social economies. 

 It is the old story of conflicting interests between moun- 

 tain shepherds and lowland farmers, of isolated mountain 

 folk, living under rigorous conditions and dependent upon 

 pastoral pursuits, clinging obstinately to their ancestral 

 rights and customs and resisting control for the benefit of 



through lack of any agencies charged with their enforce- 

 ment. The mountain population increased and for two 

 generations was practically immune from outside inter- 

 ference in handling their growing herds. During the first, 

 half of the Nineteenth Century, the flood menace became 

 steadily more alarming and was the subject of much 

 investigation. French political thought, however, was 

 still so strongly impregnated with the individualistic con- 

 ceptions of the Revolution that legislatures were loathe 

 to restrict the liberties of the mountain people. It re- 

 quired the terrible floods of 1859 to arouse the nation 

 to action. 



A law "on the reforestation of the mountains," passed 



REFORESTED LAND IN A FRENCH ALPINE REFORESTATION PROJECT 



the people of the plains with whom they had no com- 

 munity of interest. 



Torrential erosion in the French mountains is trace- 

 able directly to the denudation of their forests by over- 

 cutting and of their grass lands by over-grazing. Under 

 the "ancien regime" this does not appear to have been 

 serious, partly because the mountains were thinly popu- 

 lated* and partly because of the rigid restrictions en- 

 forced by royal decree. The French Revolution either 

 swept these restrictions aside or rendered them ineffective 



It is interesting to note that some of the mountain settlements 

 originated with communities of refugees from religious persecution dur- 

 ing the 17th century. 



in i860, sought to stimulate forest planting in mountain 

 districts by furnishing seed or plants and by paying cash 

 bonuses for areas actually restocked with trees. The 

 Council of State, furthermore, was empowered to estab- 

 lish by decree the boundaries of areas within which re- 

 forestation was essential to the public interest. Within 

 each of these projects, Communes and private owners 

 were required to reforest their lands or to turn them over 

 to the state for this purpose. The private owner who 

 declined to plant his land and carry out the other meas- 

 ures which might be prescribed, like the construction of 

 brush dams, was expropriated outright, receiving the in- 



