What is this revolutionary technique in France's Morvan range to fight against global warming?

After a worrying decline, braided hedges are making a notable comeback in the Morvan countryside. This revolutionary technique is not new, however... What are its benefits and why is it essential in the face of global warming?

Morvan braided hedge pretext trees branches
This delicate plessage technique is in fact ancestral and dates from Roman times. By cutting and then bending the trunks without breaking them, they continue to grow lying along the hedge.

In France, more than half of hedges have been razed between the beginning of the 20th century and today. In Burgundy-Franche-Comté regions, it’s 42%: but in the Morvan mountain range, an ancestral technique is making an unexpected comeback. These are woven hedges, a local and natural heritage very useful for sustainable development and against global warming.

Thank you Julius Ceasar!

With the development of intensive agriculture, hedges, which flourished, gradually disappeared from our landscapes, particularly in the Morvan, where hazelnut trees, hornbeams and ash trees have been lined up since the post-war period. The appearance of barbed wire and the expansion of cultivable plots led to this sad decline. The obstacle was in the way of the tractor, it had to disappear.

However, aware of the usefulness of these hedges, the government launched last September an aid plan of 110 million euros for the replanting of hedges: the goal is to gain 50,000 km by planting but also by preserving the existing. Today, there are only 750,000 km of hedges left in France compared to 2 million at the start of the 20th century.

In the Morvan Regional Natural Park, however, it was in 2009 that this awareness took place, with the return of an ancestral technique: braided hedges. The action of bending trees to make a hedge dates back to Roman times; Julius Caesar also considered it an "impassable" barrier, in 57 BC. The Morvan park today trains for free those wishing to place these woven hedges on their land.

A shield against climate change!

How to get a braided hedge? The technique is still quite intricate: you have to cut, incise the base of the branch or trunk of a shrub, then lay it down and place it between stakes, planted in a line to form a hedge. If the incision is made properly, without injuring the plant, the shrub will resume its growth in spring, no longer in height but lying along the hedge.

More and more "neo-rural" people are adopting this technique in the bocage of Burgundy-Franche-Comté, these woven plants being part of the local heritage and being very useful for sustainable development. Many farmers do not yet know the usefulness of these hedges, which are maintained with respect for nature and without phytosanitary products. Abandoning classic hedges will be difficult...

However, braided hedges are real defences against global warming! They are both water reserves and refuges for biodiversity (both for fauna and flora), but also carbon sinks, even more than forests. Finally, they break the wind and are also a barrier against heatwaves: with the shade they offer, they "limit evapotranspiration", which protects the herds, which are less productive above 25 degrees...