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Sustainable ideas off France's Atlantic coast: The creative side of the Île d'Oléron

2021-11-23T11:52:35.125Z


On the Île d'Oléron, the second largest island after Corsica in front of France, sustainability meets pragmatism - and traditions meet the consequences of climate change.


On the Île d'Oléron, the second largest island after Corsica in front of France, sustainability meets pragmatism - and traditions meet the consequences of climate change.

Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron - On nice days, it's the ebb tide that draws thousands of people to Chaucre beach in the north of the Île d'Oléron.

There are 7000 at peak times who storm the stony coasts of the Atlantic island in order to pursue a tradition that is becoming more and more popular in France across all age groups - tide fishing. 

Wellingtons on your feet, buckets in hand, we head out in droves towards the sea and search for oysters, mussels, crabs and other edible sea creatures.

And people like Jean-Baptiste Bonnin also go out on days like this - when the weather is anything but nice ... 

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The biologist Jean-Baptiste Bonnin was born on the island - today he shows visitors a way to protect them.

© Sandra Kathe

Tide fishing on the French Atlantic coast: Association for more sustainability

The 56-year-old was born on the island. You can tell that he stayed out of passion when he leads guests over the beach and rocks into the sea, in sneakers instead of rubber boots, and turns over and over again large stones along the way, among which he suspects the sea creatures that the sea has left behind. As an employee of the nature conservation organization IODDE (Île d'Oléron Sustainability and Nature Conservation), he knows the best locations. He helped set up the rules that apply to tide fishing here. 

“Our mission is to bring people into nature, because bans would be out of place,” says the biologist Bonnin and explains the stencil that he and his team regularly distribute on the beach to raise awareness of the locals and guests for more Sharpen sustainability in tide fishing.

Four centimeters in diameter is the minimum size for mussels, five for the length of king prawns or oysters, which, if you have the right tools, can even slurp on the beach.

This way, seafood that is smaller can continue to grow and ensure the survival of the species.

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The template from the IODDE environmental association shows the size of seafood from which it is allowed to collect.

Everything that is smaller has to be returned to the sea for reasons of sustainability.

© Sandra Kathe

Pragmatic ideas on France's Atlantic coast: Île d'Oléron conveys sustainability

The association, founded in 2004, is just one of the examples of how sustainability issues are gradually conquering the second largest French island in Europe, which is connected to the mainland of the Charente-Maritime department by a bridge.

A museum in the center of the island (Maison Éco-Paysanne) tells in French and English how life on Oléron has changed over the centuries and also shows in some aspects how climate change could cause further developments.

Anyone who is surrounded by the water of the rough Atlantic and knows how ancestors armored themselves against the forces of nature centuries ago will almost automatically develop a tendency towards pragmatism.

Entire forests have already been planted on the Île d'Oléron to protect the inland from storms and floods.

When the clay basins, which had long been used to extract salt, were no longer profitable due to industrialization on the mainland, they were quickly used for oyster farming.

This is one of the reasons why the oysters from here are among the best in the world.  

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Culinary and cultural: On the Île d'Oléron, the oyster is the focus in many places.

© Sandra Kathe

Colorful and creative: traditional huts of oyster farmers in France with a new use

The huts in which the oyster farmers once lived and worked have long since become too small and primitive - and yet they shape the face of the island in every nook and cranny. In the meantime, creative artists in two places on the east coast ensure that they attract attention and do not deteriorate. The first project to be implemented was the “Couleurs Cabanes” launched in 2004 in the small town of Château d'Oléron. Meanwhile, a little further north, the Cabanes de Créateurs are also home to creative minds.

In each of the huts, artists, artisans and creative kitchen professionals work to tie in with the traditions of the island - and yet keep creating new things.

If one of the huts becomes vacant, potential successors usually stand in line and have to go through a rigorous casting process and prove that they fit into the creative community.

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The island's oyster farmers once worked in the Couleurs Cabanes - today the administration rents the huts to artists at a symbolic price.

© Sandra Kathe

Craftsmen on the Île d'Oléron in France: creative use for traditional buildings

Because money is exceptionally irrelevant for the Couleurs Cabanes: the island administration makes the huts affordable to the artists for a symbolic annual price - and, on the other hand, receives a tourist attraction that is unparalleled even in many major French cities. Between the cabanes is a market square with a historic carousel that parents still have to push by hand, and the citadel of the castle, which was destroyed in World War II, towers above everything. If you look in their direction from the jetty in front of the Cabanes, you can see where the bomb hit.

Artists who work with Citadel View include a ukulele maker, fashion and jewelry designers, and people who are devoted to the practical arts.

The rush of guests in summer also left its mark in the workshop of cutler Grégory Lesimple.

The displays are as if swept empty, the craftsman, who has been running one of the Cabanes for over a decade, goes back to production for the next year after the season.

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Grégory Lesimple makes knives in his workshop, each of which is unique.

His neighbors build ukuleles, knot carpets and work on works of art.

© Sandra Kathe

A specialty on France's Atlantic coast: mussels meet pine needles

For him, the Couleurs Cabanes are also a form of sustainability. He and his colleagues uphold the island's traditions in two senses and combine craftsmanship with a kind of motley window into another time. When oyster farmers still lived here and had no idea that the island's most important product would one day become a worldwide symbol of luxury.

In culinary terms, the traditions between oysters and seafood are still omnipresent and affordable here.

In small producers' shops, for example in the shadow of the Phare de Chassiron lighthouse in the north of the island or in the main town of Saint-Pierre-d'Oléron, as well as in the restaurants, some of which have perfected the typical mussel preparation "éclade de moules".

Raw mussels are roasted under a layer of burning pine needles and served as a starter with bread and salted butter - the way the mussels are prepared is typical of the island. 

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Cooked and roasted under burning pine needles: the mussels in the traditional dish “éclade de moules” have a unique taste.

© Sandra Kathe

Travel to the French Atlantic coast: Rochene eggs provide information about species development

Even if even the most creative preparation is no comparison to the experience of harvesting the oysters fresh from the sea while tide fishing - at least when the seafood found has reached the necessary size of Bonnin's template.

When you get back to the beach, there is a special task waiting for the guests of the Atlantic island: You can become a temporary biologist yourself and help monitor the ray populations.

With every high tide, the sea washes the shells of stingray eggs onto the beach, which can be thrown into baskets here every few hundred meters.

Bonnin and his team can see how populations and subspecies of the fish species that are typical of the island's coastal areas develop.

From this, a lot can be discovered about the marine habitat.

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With the help of stingray eggs found on the beach, the biologists of the IODDE association can research the development of species and populations.

© Sandra Kathe

Biologists on France's Atlantic coast: increasingly harbingers of climate change

Just like every excursion towards the sea at low tide gives the biologist clues about what has changed - and that is no longer uncommon for worry lines.

When he turns over a stone again to tell his companions of the day exciting things about the sea creatures, to show starfish, sponges or crabs, his face grimaces.

The type of seaworm, which he carefully sweeps into a mug with a sip of Atlantic water, is new to the area - he found the first with a school class a few weeks ago.

"The species actually prefers the warmer coasts of Spain or southern France and can rarely be seen this far north," he explains as he closes the cup and lets it migrate to the pods of the Roche eggs in his basket bag.

The work of IODDE justifies itself in moments like this, when climate change drops in on the island. But luckily, says Bonnin, the awareness of sustainability is also increasing more and more among the guests of the island - and is making the Île d 'Oléron is also a role model and source of ideas for other regions.

(Sandra Kathe)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2021-11-23

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