Landscape Planning, 11 (1984) 235-241 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., Amsterdam - Printed in The Netherlands

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LANDSCAPE PROJECT

“REMEMBREMENT”: LANDSCAPE CONSOLIDATION IN FRANCE

JACQUES BAUDRY and FRANCOISE BUREL

C.E.R.ESA. (Centre d%tudeset de Recherche SW l’~n~~on~ernent et les Solspour ~~Arn~n~erne~t~ 2, Rue de la Matte Pique& F35 000 Rennes (France)

(Accepted for publication 4 July 1984)

ABSTRACT

Baudry, J. and Buref, F., 1984. “Remembrement”: landscape consolidation in France. Landscape Plan+ 11: 235-241.

A method is proposed to help in resolving conflicts between agricultural and ecological needs within such operations as farmland consolidation, and as these affect the hedgerow network landscape of western France.

A case study presents a hedgerow network at the beginning of one such operation, the proposed design at the end of the ecological study, and the final design set up by planners and farmers.

“REMEMBREMENT”

In France, most of the rural properties are traditionally scattered; two fields belonging to the same owner or used by the same farmer can be as much as 5 kilometers apart. In the 1940’s, the French government passed a law to help farmers to gather their land together and thus improve their working conditions, promote modern agriculture and facilitate the use of modern machinery. This law aims to redistribute the land in order to give each farmer preferably one, or at least only a very few, blocks of land not far from his farm buildings. This is carried out with reference to the surface and soil quality of each area. Such operation are called “remembrement” (re- grouping of lands), and each usually involves a whole municipality.

In the western part of France, the rural landscape is divided by a network of hedgerows surrounding the fields (Fig. 1). During the last 50 years this network, which had been built up by farmers over many centuries, has been more or less destroyed in order to enlarge fields and to widen roads. The first “remembrements” were done in open-field regions, so when the same plan- ners had to deal with hedgerows, they just ignored them. The majority of them were removed because they were no longer property boundaries. After a while, many ecological problems arose: soil erosion; wind damage to crops and buildings; increase in flooding, crop disease problems; etc.

French scientists tried to evaluate the microclimatic, biological and agron-

0304-3924/84/$03.00 0 1984 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V.

Fig. 1. A hedgerow network landscape in CanqxSac, Morbihan, France. View southward from the northern

road. Top, before “remembrement”; bottom, after “remembrement”.

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omit effects of hedgerows and their removal (I.N.R.A. et al., 1976). This re- search was very helpful in discussions between ecologists, planners and agro- nomists (Bossou-Lamoille et al., 1980).

Since 1978, an impact study has to be done by ecologists before each “remembrement” (Lefeuvre, 1981). It takes into account all the character- istics of the existing landscape. ‘These are listed below.

Locality; windbreak effectiveness; vegetation diversity; amount of fire- wood and timber in each hedgerow.

Distribution of the different land uses, e.g. crops, hay, abandoned land, woods, etc, detailing the relationship between cultivated and non-cultivated areas.

Topography; springs; streams; water quality. Characterisation of the network (mesh size, shape) in relation to historical

and agronomic data. For all these data a set of maps is drawn; one for the hedgerows, one for

the land-use systems, and one for the roads, tracks and streams. These give detailed information to the planners. With these maps a report explains how such a landscape could be managed in order to develop good farming condi- tions in a good ecosystem.

The main roles of hedgerows in agroecosystems are as windbreaks, barriers against erosion (and thus against non-point pollution by phosphorus adsorb- ed on soil particles), corridors for natural fauna and flora, and pools of ge- netic diversity among a more and more monocultural agriculture. To main- tain and restore these functions, hedgerows should be primarily located across slopes, they should be connected in a new network to allow species movement, and they should have a complex structure and a wide species diversity in order to provide appropriate habitats for birds, insects, small

FRANCE

0 300 km

Fig. 2. The locality of Campkdac.

BRITTANY

CAMPENEAC

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;< &.~ i& ,,*.; road . . . . . ...*... stream

OYF- 100 m

(A)

m-m good windbreak

---- p00r windbreak

l *** good wlndbreak with antierosive effect

hedgerow to be maintained

-IS_ hedgerow to be maintained with amelioration

of its windbreak effect

11111.‘110 hedgerow to be planted

Fig. 3. Maps of hedgerow network in Camp&Sac {France). A. The network before the 9emembrement”. B. Proposed new network based on ecological data.

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mammals and reptiles. It is recommended that new windbreaks are created to form a “mesh” and to protect buildings; these plantations should be made of native species of shrubs and trees.

Design proposals to maintain the ecological functions of these hedgerow network landscapes take into account not only the specific role of each hedgerow, but also the structure of the overall landscape and its ecology (Forman and Baudry, 1984). Interconnections in the networks appear to play an important role in allowing forest species movement in agricultural areas (J. Baudry and R.T.T. Forman, unpublished results, 1983). From maps of the existing landscape, the planner knows exactly which hedgerows are important and which can be removed with no significant impact on the agro- ecosystem.

In order to give information to farmers and the general public, a booklet is given to local people in charge of the “remembrement” in which the main hedgerow network functions are summarized (Baudry et al., 1984).

The role of the ecologists could stop here, but in fact planners prefer that the ecologists propose a network based on an ecological point of view (which means without ownership constraints). The new fields are large enough (about 4 ha) to allow modern cultivation techniques where the soil permits it, or otherwise, in damp or on rocky soils, the fields can be smaller (l-2 ha). The planner then uses this document as a basis for his proposals and feeds in

hedgerows

rmrrwrw road

Fig, 4. The planner’s design.

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the ownership constraints, which sometimes lead him to adopt other boun- daries than in the ecological proposal. The final document is established after discussion between the ecologists and the planner.

We have carried out such studies in 18 municipalities (10 000 ha). The ex- ample given here is from Campeneac, Morbihan, France (Fig. 2). The munici- pality area is 3000 ha. It took 4 months for an ecologist to collect field data and draw the maps, and 1 month to write the report. The cost of the study was 18 FF/ha. In the maps in Fig. 3, part of the south east of the area is shown. There is a valley occupied by wet meadows with many hedgerows, the slopes and upland areas are cultivated, and hedgerows are rare. This is a characteristic pattern of the region.

We proposed keeping the hedgerows surrounding the valley, which play a key role in protection against soil erosion and in the conservation of water quality, and maintaining, as far as possible, all trees in the wet meadows where they do not disturb agricultural practices, in order to complete a net- work on the uplands with areas large enough to support cereal crops.

The planner in Campeneac decided to remove half of the hedgerows (265 kilometers are to be maintained, as against 492 kilometers before the operation). In the part of the municipality described above, not all the hedgerows in our proposal were kept. In some cases that was not ecologically important, but for the two sections marked (a) and (b) in Fig. 4, which surround the valley, erosion and drainage problems are already arising.

We have no authority to retain a hedgerow against the decision of the owner, so if the representative assembly of farmers and owners accept a plan, we cannot do anything.

In order to increase the efficiency of these studies, there is a need to de- velop more information for local owners and farmers, and to do more re- search on the agroecological effects of hedgerows and ditches.

CONCLUSION

After 8 years’ experience in carrying out environmental studies before “remembrement”, we feel that this course of action is more and more useful, and that the ecological needs of rural landscapes should be taken into ac- count by planners.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The study was financially supported by the Direction Departementale de 1’Agriculture du Morbihan. We thank the reviewers of this journal for helping us in our English expression and for their encouragement.

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REFERENCES

Baudry, J., Burel, F., Lefeuvre, J.C. and Niore, J., 1984. Des structures agraires en &olu- tion: les bocages Ecologic,’ Amdnagement, Usages. I.N.R.A. - C.E.E. Secretariat d’Etat B 1’Environnement.

Bossou-Lamouille, F., Lefeuvre, J.C., Missonnier, J. and Renard, J.. 1980.Caract&istiques du bocage et consequences de leur am&ragement. Discussion et conclusions g&i&ales. Bulletin Technique d’Information 3531355, pp. 877-898.

Forman, R.T.T. and Baudry, J., 1984. Hedgerows and hedgerow networks in landscape ecology. Environ. Manage,, in press.

I.N.R.A., C.N.R.S., E.N.S.A. and Universitd de Rennes, 1976. Les Bocages: Histoire - Ecologic - Economic. 586 pp.

Lefeuvre, J.C., 1981. Les Etudes scientifiques, un pr&lable indispensable B la restructura- tion foncidre et P l’am&agement des zones agricoles bocageres. In: Colloque Ecologic et DGveloppement, 19-20 September 1979, C.N.R.S.