The workforce of the National Forestry Office (ONF) “will not drop in 2023”, announced on Saturday the Minister for Ecological Transition, Christophe Béchu, in a interview at South West. “They will be stabilized on the entire ecology pole (Ademe, Météo France, French Office for Biodiversity, etc.) and on the ONF”, he added.
The workforce of the ONF, in deficit, has shrunk over the past twenty years, from 12,800 people in 2000 to nearly 8,000 currently, responsible for managing the 11 million hectares of French public forests.
“Prevent the burning of the massifs”
A new objectives and performance contract (2021-2025) provides for the elimination of 475 additional positions. Five trade unions filed a lawsuit in June to demand its cancellation.
In August, a senatorial report recommended to the government to “return on the 500 job cuts of the NFB planned”. It is necessary, for the senators, “to prevent the conflagration” of the massifs and for that, to “restore the posts of protection agents of the Mediterranean forest abolished in recent years” and “deploy more posts” outside the Mediterranean region. In July, the National Federation of Forest Municipalities (FNCOFOR), which represents more than 12,000 forest owners, and an association of rural mayors called for “strong public forest services” in the face of the monster fires and the scale of the climate challenge.
Oblige private owners to clear their plots
“The State will rely on its expertise, but it is not only the State, it is the whole Nation which is called upon to engage with its associations and its professionals in public forests as in the forests private”, underlined Christophe Béchu. “We will have to make sure that there are no abandoned forest areas and, if not, think about ways to replace the owners,” he added. “Global warming doesn’t care whether a tree is public or private. In particular, he intends to “define the procedure to follow” by next summer to force private owners to clear their plots.
Christophe Béchu is due to go to Gironde on Thursday, a department devastated by forest fires this summer. The minister must in particular say more about the plan to plant a billion trees within ten years – out of 11 billion currently – announced on Friday by President Emmanuel Macron.