Nimble like a circus artist, Louise Drieux bends behind her draft horse, with, in her gloved hand, a lanyard which ties her to the animal: “Ho, stop!
»She orders, then:« Come on!
The equine pulls sharply to extract the false acacia to which it is attached by a chain, without any engine roar obscuring the sounds of the surrounding nature.
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This scene will be repeated hundreds of times every day for a week.
Together, the man and the trained animal will work to uproot the invasive plants and free up a few hectares of a sensitive natural area located in the town of Sotteville-sous-le-Val (Seine-Maritime) and owned by the Rouen metropolis. .
On this ground, the creator of the company Les Sabots sur terre, based in the Eure, has for mission to “reopen the environment”, to avoid the birth of a young forest which would modify the fauna and the flora of the 'protected space.
A former
cowgirl
to master the landscape
Using the energy and strength of horses to work the soil gently: the idea was trotting in the mind of this
32-year-old
ex
-cowgirl
, responsible, when she lived in Patagonia, for 100 heads of animals on a ranch .
With her horse-drawn traction business, Louise Drieux does not only pull up shrubs, far from it: she also intervenes to sow, mow and shred, or in the logging of felled trees, "but also in the vines or to loosen river bottoms ”.
For all these jobs, animal traction is the "softest" of all techniques.
Thanks to their low lift, "horses do not compact the soil while the machine damages them", explains the rider trained in landscaping.
The technique also limits noise pollution as well as CO2 emissions, without risk of pollution of the soil and waterways.
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In Le Havre, biodiversity regains possession of the Citadel basin
On the limestone slopes of Sotteville-sous-le-Val, it is Sébastien Thénard's sheep who maintain the place on a daily basis.
But eco-grazing is not enough, the intervention of the horse will make it possible to uproot and exhaust the invasive plant "rather than using a rotary cutter which would compact the soil and strengthen the root system since it would only cut the soil. stem ”, explains the breeder.
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And if the operation by animal traction is more expensive than the use of a machine, the result is on the other hand more durable, as Louise Drieux explains in turn: “With a rotary cutter, you have to come back every year.
But will we not finally gain ten years with an intervention by horse?
"