The parliamentary mission headed by Frédérique Tufffnell, an MP from the Charente-Maritime, Department and Jérome Bignon, a senator from the Somme Department, submitted its report (Lands of water, lands of the future: make our wetlands pioneering territories for an ecological transition) on 28 January 2019 to the Prime Minister and Minister for an Ecological and Solidarity-based Transition).
Launched by the Prime Minister in August 2018 in the framework of the Interministerial Plan for Biodiversity, this mission was devised to assess the degradation of wetlands in metropolitan France and its overseas departments. In addition, based on the consultation of a large number of stakeholders from political, administrative, economic, non-profit, and scientific communities, it was supposed to propose ideas for their conservation, possible restoration, and enhancement.
The mission came to visit the Camargue in this framework in the autumn of 2018 in order to meet local conservation and management stakeholders of the largest wetland in France, including the Tour du Valat, whose founder Luc Hoffmann was one of the pioneers of wetlands conservation internationally via the Ramsar Convention he initiated.
In particular, it was the occasion to visit the former Camargue saltworks site, a vast 6500-hectare former saltworks that now belongs to the French Coastal Protection Agency (CdL), in which an ambitious ecological restoration programme [1] has been developed since 2012 under the leadership of the Tour du Valat and the two other co-managers of the site, the National Nature Protection Society (SNPN) and the Camargue Regional Natural Park. The members of parliament were able to observe on site how nature-based solutions [2] are being experimented with there to enhance adaptation to the consequences of climate warming in coastal zones, which are an excellent natural rampart against the rising sea level forecast to occur in the upcoming decades.
In its conclusion, the mission made numerous recommendations in seven thematic areas for taking better account of wetlands in France and transforming them into “lands of the future,” based on three main principles: 1) taking account of wetlands as essential tools for adapting to climate change and its environmental and socio-economic consequences, 2) making territories more responsible in terms of their land-use policies, and 3) making use of legislative and financial tools to “valorize” the numerous environmental services provided by wetlands.
We would like to cite the following seven examples of these recommendations:
- The need to develop an ambitious awareness-raising strategy for the general public and decision-makers on the importance of wetlands, particularly with respect to climate issues;
- A new more complete definition of wetlands, inspired by the Ramsar Convention, should be written into law;
- The French National Geographic Institute (IGN) should better coordinate the different wetland mapping surveys;
- Ramsar site designations in metropolitan France and its overseas territories should be doubled in the next ten years;
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) should be established in the framework of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, and attributed to the farmers working in wetlands who benefit from contractual agronomic and ecological assistance; - The amounts allocated in water agency budgets for the conservation and restoration of wetlands must be completely protected and guaranteed;
- Various fiscal and financial mechanisms must be put in place that enable virtuous wetlands conservation decisions and behaviour to be promoted.
This report was submitted to the government and will be presented in the upcoming months to various decision-making and technical bodies that work to further the preservation of wetlands, and it will make it possible to start several research projects in 2019.
You can access this report in French via the link below.