Soon an underground nature reserve in Ariège

With the caves of Niaux, Mas d'Azil or Lombrives, where the Deep Time experiment was carried out in 2021, Ariège is known for its underground heritage.

And this is precisely what the State wishes to protect with the start of a process to create the first French underground reserve.

Notice of opportunity unanimously favorable by the National Council for the Protection of Nature to the project to create the underground national nature reserve of @ariegeledpt, which concerns several dozen cavities in the #PNR 🤩@kamelchibli @Ecologie_Gouv @Prefet09 pic. twitter.com/gUSNcYSxHG

– Ariège Pyrenees Natural Park (@PARC_PA) May 4, 2022

"It's a project that was imagined twenty years ago and which was relaunched 3-4 years ago," recalls Catherine Lupion, sub-prefect of Saint-Girons.

After the favorable opinion given to the preliminary draft by the National Council for the Protection of Nature, work will begin to delimit the perimeter of the cavities concerned and to exchange with the users of these spaces, whether they are speleologists or tourist operators, for whom “there will be no impact”.

The calotriton, an endemic species of the Pyrenees, will be protected within the framework of this reserve.

DR/Leo Powder

This will give rise in particular to the protection of animal species, “a kind of underground biological heritage”, explains Matthieu Cruege, director of the natural park of the Ariège Pyrenees, who plays the role of local facilitator in the project.

This is about bats, calotritons, endemic to the Pyrenees, or many invertebrates.

"There is a very strong diversity because there is no biological connection between the cavities", he insists.

But for him, "it is not just a conservation tool, but also a tourist, educational and cultural enhancement tool".

For the moment, 29 sites would be concerned in the department of Ariège, for an estimated surface of 2,100 hectares.