Dear friend, dear friend,
In recent weeks, heavy clashes have taken place between the police and protesters in Sainte Soline(1).
The police intervened with quads and tear gas canisters.
It looks like what we had experienced with the yellow vests.
The balance sheet had not been good. According to a report by Amnesty International, there were at the time 2,500 injured among the demonstrators and 1,800 among the police. What a carnage(2) !
Leaders’ fear of seeing a new ZAD develop
The strong reaction of the authorities shows that the executive power is afraid. He fears a general insurrection.
And the risk is there. A few days ago, the town hall of Bordeaux burned(3). It’s not nothing.
The level of misunderstanding and hatred among stakeholders is rising.
In Sainte Soline, the executive fears that a ZAD will be reconstituted like in Notre Dame des Landes where the construction of an airport for the city of Nantes and the great west had been planned.
A “ZAD” is a “Deferred development zone” for the government and a “Zone to defend” for the ecologists(4).
The authorities mark out a piece of land to carry out a project, the demonstrators use it as a camping site.
This scenario could happen again in Sainte Soline.
Voting and debates: involving citizens in important decision-making
The Notre Dame des Landes airport project was launched in 1963, but was abandoned in 2018.
How was the crisis resolved? By a vote!
In 2016, the local population voted: 55% of the inhabitants of the Loire Atlantique department were in favor. On the other hand, those who were close to the site were strongly against(5).
The return of the democratic game has in any case made everyone think. The moderate opposition withdrew from the fight against the project.
And the government, in the end, having seen the evolution of general public opinion, ended up burying the project.
We should proceed in the same way in Sainte Soline: the inhabitants of the departments of Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres must vote on the question of large basins.
If the yes wins, the government will have more legitimacy to pass its project, if it’s no, it will have no dishonor to back down.
You will tell me that debates took place within the local elected assemblies.
But it’s not the same thing.
On such an important subject, which has a lasting effect on the common good of the inhabitants, everyone must be able to express themselves.
Getting residents to vote means allowing them to take full ownership of the subject. It also means giving yourself the means to try to reach a fair decision.
As long as the general impression is that this project is only for a handful of farmers, this project may not seem right…
What are the large basins of Poitou used for?
Poitou is a hilly country.
It is a pretty countryside that links the Loire Valley and its sweetness to the north, and countries, or morning as they used to say, harsher to the south, though magnificent(6).
Poitou leads to Angoumois and Saintonge and its mills(7). It is a stage before Périgord then Aquitaine. I’m talking about the old one.
To the east is Limousin and Vendée borders Poitou to the west. Before the Revolution, Vendée and Poitou formed the same province.
We often fought there against the English.
And in fact, the Poitevins knew how to take advantage of the struggles for influence between the kings of France and England(8).
These times are long gone, but Poitou remains a very beautiful and very sunny country.
That there is no water there today is not so much of a surprise…
The famous litigious basins, or substitution reservoirs, are located near Niort, capital of the Deux-Sèvres department(9).
That of Sainte Soline is a little further east, still in the Deux-Sèvres(79) but near the Vienne department(86).
The project of the large basins is to draw the winter in the water tables to constitute large reservoirs that the farmers could use in the summer.(10).
We build big holes in the fields that we border with mounds(11).
The reservoir covers 10 hectares. 16 other basins are planned in Deux-Sèvres(12,13).
Is this the right answer to bring to the lack of water?
Those who need these water supplies include growers of maize, a tropical plant that needs lots of sun and lots of water.
The truth is that France should not grow corn, neither in Poitou nor elsewhere. There are other traditional fodder plants.
The reality on the ground is perhaps more nuanced. If this project exists, it is because some of the local farmers benefit from it.
But certainly pumping up groundwater and exposing it to evaporative loss seems like an aberration. 20 to 60% of the water would evaporate(12,13).
In addition, this contained water can be spoiled by bacteria or algae while it does not risk anything at depth.
Finally, the climate is warming up. In a few years, the reservoirs will no longer suffice. This solution looks like a poultice on a wooden leg. It’s a big mismanagement financed by the taxpayer at 70%(13).
How to keep water on a territory?
The answer is not by growing monocultures as far as the eye can see!
In the past, Poitou was a land of polyculture and extensive livestock farming. Manure was used as fertilizer. Large meadows were used for cattle(14).
Even after the Second World War, on a traditional farm, wheat, oats, barley, meslin (a mixture of cereals and vetch), beets, Jerusalem artichokes and vines were grown.(14).
Pigeons, rabbits, goats, sheep, ducks, geese, chickens, guinea fowl and a few pigs were raised.
There were more hedges. Today, like almost everywhere, monoculture has often imposed itself.
But the agricultural revolution of the 1960s no longer kept its promises. Yields are stagnating or falling and we now know that the environmental cost of this agriculture is considerable.(15).
The only realistic solution is to change agriculture(15).
The aim is to strengthen the organic and reasoned agriculture sectors.
It is also a question of thinking of agriculture as an element of nature, certainly, shaped by the hand of man and not as a conquest over nature.
We could also integrate the notion of environmental services provided by farmers, which would then be financed by local communities.
The work of preserving the environment and biodiversity would then be recognized.
Champagne, Lorraine, Burgundy and Casamance…
Claude Bourguignon, biologist, reminds us in these conferences and his public interventions: to have water, you need trees(15).
They slow down the flow of water with their roots, so that the earth around remains moist and, moreover, they are able to call the clouds by emitting chemical signals.(16).
It’s extraordinary !
Claude Bourguignon compares deforested Champagne with verdant Lorraine and Burgundy.
It rains 600 mm per year in Champagne and 800 mm per year in Burgundy and Lorraine.
There are today 16% of forests in Poitou. This figure may need to be increased further to conserve water(17).
In the medium term, it would be much more effective than building basins in which the water evaporates.
In Senegal, in Casamance, it is with trees that we fight against drought, not basins! This project is called the Great Green Wall. The objective is to push back the borders of the Sahel(18).
The Spanish precedent
Spain, long before France, had to deal with the issue of water management.
In Extramadura, a large semi-desert region in the west of the country that borders Portugal, water reservoirs have also been introduced(19,20).
Farmers are not complaining about it.
But environmentalists are finding that the country’s alternative water reserves and river diversions have reached their limits.
We can’t go any further.
Some natural environments are in danger. And the Tagus, the great river that crosses Spain could run dry in some places(19,20).
In short, the situation there is tense.
And surrogate pools don’t seem to be a game-changer, although they are sometimes necessary.
The future therefore belongs to trees and not to basins!
Naturally yours,
Augustine of Livois