BIT MEDITERRANEAN IN CORBIERES Some local data … Completely singular entity, Lagrasse is situated in the region of Corbières Orientales, that is a zone limited to the North by the plain of the Aude, in the East by the littoral fringe, in the South by the department of Oriental Pyrenees and on the West by Corbières Occidentales (influences of the Atlantic and mountain climate). Installed(settled) on natural grounds limestone mainly , often superficial, affected and degraded, she should face a very contrasted Mediterranean climate which one can qualify as climate of all the extremes in spite of appearances: been very warm and dry (deficit hydrique pronounced typical of the Mediterranean climate), autumns in the diluvian rains, periodically rigorous winters and passionate winds breaking out on plains and hills. In Corbières, this passionate wind sweeping(annihilating) gaily reliefs, frequent and sometimes very violent, of sector the West in Northwest, is called Cers. All these elements confer on the whole this zone of the limited forested potentialities, in term of production. Some additional data to end: the height varies approximately from 100 to 600 metres and the river of Orbieu, crossing Lagrasse, establishes(constitutes) the chief detail(room) of the river system.

A little of history … 6500 years ago, following upon the last würmienne glaciation (-10.000 years), the holm oak (Mediterranean essence par excellence) and especially the downy oak should occupy the quasi-totality of Corbières Orientales until Roman time, dividing up according to the climatic factors, édaphiques (nature of the ground) and topographic of the place. As for Alep's pine, autochthon of the region according to analyses recent palynologiques (study of fossil pollens), he should remain in islands. Of an economy of prepayment in kind (crop, hunting and peach(fishing)), the man passed gradually in an economy of production (culture, breeding, etc.) and sédentarisa. Hanging some thousand years, this primitive forest paid a heavy levy to the needs of the man, and was strongly ruined in the last centuries:

__ Paissance, even " surpaissance " of the animals on already very poor scrublands (the tooth of the cattle saved(spared) nothing),

__ Use the best plots of land for different cultures (wheat and the other cereal, vineyards, oliveraies),

__ Continual clearing and clearing to warm or feed lime kilns, glass factories(glass-making) and forges, etc. (the coalwomen smoked gaily),

__ Added to this human pressure, the fire ended to annihilate the forest (nowadays, the fire remains the biggest enemy).

Since age-old times, the pastoral economy was imperative itself in Corbières. The continual development of the pasture was always made to the detriment of the forest. The clearings made good progress to increase the surfaces of route(course) of crowds of ovinés as far as the fire, often used, became an effective ally. Dozens thousand animals with wools (sheeps) and some thousand horned animals (goats((tackles)) measured the bare Mediterranean hills. One finds in certain names of village or places, the importance of this livestock: Lanet for the wool, Val de Dagne for the sheep either still Saint-Laurent de la Cabrerisse for goat(tackle). Besides the milk and the meat, the industry of the prosperous wool represented the essential resource of Corbières. as it was not either called the road of the wool, the road between Carcassonne and Lagrasse! Furthermore, the development of the abbeys of Fontfroide ( Cistercian) and Lagrasse ( Benedictine) was only stressing this superiority of the breeding.

In quoted(esteemed) by the breeding, an additional polyculture still decreased the forested surface before the vineyard also comes to reduce to " a shagreen " the forest of Corbières. Finally, at the same time, the exploitation of different ores, the forges, the glass factories(glass-making), the tanneries (harvest of the bark rich in tan to return rotproof leathers), etc. contributed strikingly to the impoverishment of the forested surface of the region.

Nowadays, all these activities having unmistakably disappeared, declined or undergone a decline, the forest resumes quite slowly its rights faithfully for the natural dynamics of the vegetation. It is necessary to remind itself that the French forested surface had reached(affected) a critical threshold of 8 million hectares in the last century while today, it found appreciably its surface of the Middle Age with practically 16 million hectares. It is necessary to say also that if the pastoralisme began to decline since the French revolution, the drift from the land not to say the desertification (less human pressure in campaigns) conjugated to the era of the industrialization and to the use of new energy resources (coal and petroleum notably) also contributed to the " revégétalisation " of our Corbières.

The Mediterranean forest today … The current vegetable coverage consists of big zones of scrublands (" Mediterranean degraded forest ") resulting from anthropological actions (culture, surpâturage, excessive(unfair) exploitations, even fire), of important surfaces of protected copse of holm oak which are regularly run for the local needs (wood of stoking(fire chamber)), of some pubescentes oak groves relics supplying sporadically with some wood of heater and with little productive coniferous populatings altogether.

Pines, essences pioneers, form pine forests or pineraies which contribute to the beauty of the rocky landscapes of the region. On calcareous soil (Corbières has a dominant karstic relief), Alep's pines ( natural colonization) and pines or black pines of Austria stemming from artificial regenerations, adapt their growth to the frugality of these superficial grounds, whereas maritime pines grow exclusively on siliceous grounds. Sweet chestnut trees and oaks corks have the same requirements to broad-leaved trees. Finally, punctual plantations of cedar of the Atlas come to increase this coniferous forested surface and as for the cypress, it(he) deserves nevertheless to be quoted because it(he) counts as an important element of the Mediterranean landscape.

The forest of Corbières Orientales is mainly allocated to the general protection of the environment(middle) (cf. erosion of grounds, landscape, environment) and additionally in the production of coniferous wood of work (however modest) and of leafy firewood. Furthermore, she(it) dresses(takes on) an original role of reception of the public in this tourist region of Languedoc. Nowadays, a single threat presses dangerously on this forest: his(her) vulnerability on the fire, the real Achilles' heel of the Mediterranean region (during summer, 2003, it is 60.000 hectares of forest which burned).

In conclusion, although she(it) has no prestige of the forest of Tronçais or the other forests so famous, the Mediterranean forest of Lagrasse's neighborhood deserves however the titles of nobility which force all our admiration and our biggest respect. If Saint-Exupéry said that the main part is invisible, let us know how to be amazed simply in front of this apparently poor nature but in the unsuspected beauty. Protect her(it) so that the vegetable can pursue the reconquest of the mineral and let us hope that Prométhée's work will not burn this Mediterranean forest during an overheated summer.