A first file to obtain from Unesco the registration of the Côte de Granit Rose, near Lannion in the Côtes-d'Armor, as a world heritage site, will be submitted "
within three, four years
", says the association. who carries out this project.
"Some, within our scientific committee, think that it will be done in two to three years but I rather count on a deadline of three to four years", explained to AFP Marielle Kerbaol, founder and president of the association, “Pink granite coast, respect and protection”.
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This file, which has received the support of personalities such as the Nobel-winning writer Jean-Marie Le Clézio or the paleoclimatologist Jean Jouzel, is only the first stage of a long journey.
A website exposing the project will be activated soon.
Recently, the association decided on the geographical perimeter of the coastline for which it plans to request classification.
This perimeter, which also includes imposing quarries, includes the municipalities of Perros-Guirec, with the nature reserve of the Sept-Îles archipelago, Pleumeur-Bodou, with Ile Grande, Trébeurden and Trégastel.
This granitic chaos several hundred million years old is the product of an eruption of magma in an Armorican peninsula then traversed by high mountains, followed by long-term erosion.
“
When the magma comes out on the surface of the earth, it gives lava but, when it cools down deep, it will give granite.
It is erosion that has made this granite visible for a few tens of thousands of years
, ”geologist Odile Guérin explained to AFP last year.
If the dominant color of the granites of this coast is pink, it can also turn out to be beige, even gray as on Grande Island.
Better protection against natural erosion
The objective of such classification would be to ensure better protection against natural erosion of a fragile site despite its apparent resistance.
It would also be a question of highlighting it more and better protecting it, with a regulation of tourism, by lengthening the periods of frequentation and a limitation of the artificialization of the grounds nibbled in particular by a “galloping urbanization”, argues Marielle Kerbaol.
The association carefully observes the course of the Carnac megaliths file, initially launched in 1986 and then registered in 1996 on the indicative list of Unesco, before falling into limbo for a few years.
Relaunched in 2012, it could end in 2025 or 2026, according to the mayor of Carnac Olivier Lepick (DVD).
At the end of 2021, the director general of Unesco Audrey Azoulay had expressed the wish to see more classified natural sites.
Currently, of the 1,154 classified sites in the world, 897 are cultural sites, 218 are natural sites and 39 are mixed sites combining the two.
A classified site can be removed from the list if it ceases to fulfill the required conditions.
