Abstract
The management of small private forests in the Western World has been under threat owing to rural and agricultural transformations since the Second World War. The actions put in place to preserve those forests are hard to implement because the forests are managed essentially in an unofficial way that is not clearly understood. Through multidisciplinary approaches, our aims were to understand local forest management processes, to assess the continuities and discontinuities of usages and practices in the Coteaux de Gascogne area of France, and to propose guidelines for future forest management. Forest management is shaped by a traditional but unrecognized social system called the house-centered system, which has contributed to a high degree of domesticity and diversity in forestry practices in this area. If forest management guidelines are to be effective, any guidelines put in place should take into account the roots of the traditional management system and attempt to comply with local social organizations. This is a major challenge regarding the long-term preservation of small private forests.
Highlights
Contrary to many parts of the world where extensive literature exists on usages and practices in small private forest (e.g., North America and northern Europe: reviewed in Egan 1997, Fischer et al 2010; Southeast Asia and Africa: Michon et al 2007), small French private forests are not well known
ANTHROPOLOGICAL, HISTORICAL, AND FORESTRY APPROACHES Study site We studied small private forests in southwestern France (43° 16’ N, 48° 43’ E; 200–400 m a.s.l.) in the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) platform “Vallées et Coteaux de Gascogne,” which covers an area of 440 km2 (Fig. 1)
FOREST MANAGEMENT CHARACTERISTICS IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL CHANGE To get a precise understanding of changes in forest management, we provide a social analysis of domestic usages of small private forests during the 20th century
Summary
Contrary to many parts of the world where extensive literature exists on usages and practices in small private forest (e.g., North America and northern Europe: reviewed in Egan 1997, Fischer et al 2010; Southeast Asia and Africa: Michon et al 2007), small French private forests are not well known. French forested properties of < 25 ha are generally not managed through official management plans (Plan Simple de Gestion approved by the Centre Régional de la Propriété Forestière, or Regional Center for Forest Property), which are mandatory only for larger properties. In France, private forests occupy approximately three-quarters of the total forest surface area, which means approximately 11 million ha These forests belong to a large number of owners (approximately 3.5 million) and are often small: nearly 87% of the owners possess < 4 ha (2010 data, Forêt privée française: http://www.foretpriveefrancaise.com). Whether active or retired, own 1.3 million ha (Cinotti and Normandin 2002), mainly in small woodlots (Maresca and Picard 2010)
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