The bocage, a landscape of the future for the Normandy-Maine Park
The bocage is a constitutive element and identity of the Normandy-Maine landscapes and it is also a landscape of future for this territory. Bocage hedges enable:
- Resource preservation (soil erosion protection, windbreak effect) provides important habitat for biodiversity as well as shelter for livestock.
- Pollution reduction
- The optimisation of wood (especially for heating)
- The attractiveness of the territory, both residential and tourist.
An inter-community approach
The Park runs a hedgerow planting programme through funding from the Normandie and Pays de la Loire regions and in conjunction with the Mayenne department's planting assistance programme. The Park is also seeking Fonds pour l'arbre.
This strong reciprocity between communities allows for 80% of the cost of the work to be covered. Within this framework, 83 km of hedges have been planted in 4 years and these measures will be renewed in 2023!
It is a process of reestablishment of the bocage where communities, farmers and individuals are invited to apply and submit their planting project. For each selected project, the Park will coordinate all the work and will finance 80% of it. The remaining 20% will be the responsibility of the beneficiary who will have to commit to maintaining and sustaining the hedge for a minimum of 15 years.
New for 2023
Embankment schemeFor the first year, the Park is offering to pay for the creation of embankments for beneficiaries who wish to do so. Hedges on embankments offer a number of advantages: their windbreak and anti-erosion roles are enhanced, as is their capacity to host biodiversity.
To benefit from this planting aid you must:
• be a community, a farmer, a resident or an association;
• have a project to plant a hedgerow on the Park's territory (including gateway towns);
• have a planting project of between 150 and 1,000 linear metres (lm).
Selection criteria
Projects located in the sectors of interest as per the Charter (Green and Blue area, ecological corridor, anti-erosion role, etc.) will be selected as a priority. The same is true for candidates involved in a sustainable hedge-wood development process.
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