LAW OF 1882 143 



in 1879 a new proposed law which, after having been modified in certain 

 of its provisions, became the law of April 4, 1882, on the "Restoration 

 and the Conservation of Mountain Lands." 



Law of 1882. — The law clearly recognized reforestation as obligatory 

 public work. Local commissions examine the plans proposed by the 

 Forest Service and finally the law itself (Art. 2), and not merely a decree, 

 determines the boundaries within which the work must be executed — 

 that it only applies to land actually damaged or in '' actual and present 

 danger." Within the estabhshed boundaries the work is carried out on 

 lands belonging to the State in fee simple, which acquires them either 

 privately or by expropriation (Art. 4). Moreover, the private owners, 

 the communes, or the public institutions can retain the ownership of 

 their land if they reach an understanding with the State before the 

 expropriation and if they engage to carry out, within the time allotted, 

 the work of restoration under the conditions prescribed by the Waters 

 and Forests Service administration and under its control. The State 

 subsidizes this reforestation work because of its value to the public and 

 in order to repay the owners for their sacrifices. The law also prescribes 

 the *' reservation" (for a period not to exceed 10 years) of grazing grounds 

 whose degradation is not far enough advanced to justify expropriation; 

 and the boundaries are established by decree. The deficiencies (without 

 doubt wilful in the provisions concerning grazing) have rendered the 

 apphcation of the law extremely difficult. In the United States most of 

 the additions to western National Forests can be made only by Congress, 

 but a Presidential decree is sufficient for eliminations. The same dis- 

 tinction is made in France, where reforestation boundaries are made 

 by law and grazing betterment boundaries by decree. 



"From the considerations which precede, it results that parhament, guided by the 

 dominating thought of reconciUng the pubhc interest with that of the mountain in- 

 habitants, did not wish that the boundaries be excessively restricted. The original 

 organic law did not foresee the inclusion of vast areas in order to regulate water courses; 

 it only gave the administration the power to take the live sores, the lips eroded by tor- 

 rents, where actual and present dangers presented themselves." 



The law of 1882 ordered the revision of the former boundaries, which 

 were found much too extended. It follows that the law did not aim 

 to create vast forests capable of yielding large revenue in the future, 

 but rather the concentration, over limited area, of intensive work — 

 dams, etc. — accompanied now and then by forestation. 



But if these lands yield nothing in money to the State, that does not 

 mean that they are of no value to the local community, for they protect 

 the villages, the roads, the railways, and the crops of rich valleys against 

 torrents or avalanches. However, in certain regions, the problem has 

 been considered somewhat differently. It has appeared (the damage 



