An elegant egret wanders through this verdant wetland, its long legs camouflaged in the brackish water.
We are five minutes from downtown La Rochelle, just behind the train station.
This bird walks in the "renatured" Tasdon marsh, open to the public in June after a year and a half of work.
These 82 hectares of former salt marshes were exploited from the Middle Ages until the 1930s, then partly backfilled in the 1970s at the option of neighboring constructions.
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Abandoned since then, this “wild” site classified as a Natural Zone of Ecological, Faunistic and Floristic Interest (ZNIEFF) has undergone a colossal metamorphosis costing 5.3 million euros.
Either one of the most important environmental projects in France.
“This
renaturation
was introduced to respond to ecological issues.
This wetland had to be restored to its natural functioning, in particular by reconnecting the marsh with the sea, by digging ponds, by removing invasive vegetation ”, lists Hélène Rouquette, nature and landscape director at the town hall of La Rochelle.
"From ecological engineering to the backhoe loader"
Work began in December 2019, with a flood of criticism. In view of the many construction machinery - 150,000 cubic meters of fill have been cleared - residents feared the destruction of a natural area. Some even brought the case before the Poitiers (Vienne) administrative court, which rejected the request. “This site was ecological engineering with a backhoe loader. But it is so that nature can better regain its rights, ”says Hélène Rouquette, who assures us that the new face of the site is now well received.
Construction machinery has given way to islands, paths, footbridges, vegetation left in the rough, or almost. “Here, it's not a park. It is all the delicacy of this project: to be a place of walk for the general public while remaining an ecological sanctuary. And it is also a blue carbon sink since marshes have the capacity to capture CO2. This is fully in line with our La Rochelle Territoire Zéro Carbone approach, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2040, ”concludes Chantal Vetter, the deputy mayor in charge of this file.
