How Christmas trees impact the environment in France – 12/24/2023 – Environment

The ecological ethics of Christmas trees is a subject that concerns many people in the Morvan Natural Park, in France.

These remote highlands of the Burgundy region produce more than a million baby pine trees for the market every year, making the region France’s largest producer.

But for every place that’s happy with the money and jobs created by Christmas trees, there’s another that laments their impact on the environment.

Here, as elsewhere, only a small percentage of Christmas tree plantings are done organically.

The vast majority depend on the application of chemical treatments.

And while efforts are being made to reduce the use of herbicides and pesticides, no one seriously disputes their negative effects.

“The production of Christmas trees, due to the use of chemical herbicides, can have an impact on water resources,” says the park’s website.

“That’s why measures are being taken to reduce the impact of this activity as much as possible.”

This admission by authorities is the least, activists say.

Muriel André, a local farmer and activist, showed what she says is a typical small-scale plantation on a hillside near her home.

The field previously used as pasture now contains around 20,000 seedlings, planted by a farmer from the neighboring county.

Around the outer perimeter, grass and weeds grow abundantly, but beneath the small pines there is nothing — just dirt and a few tufts of dead vegetation.

“That comes from the herbicides, which they spray to contain any plants that might compete with the trees,” she says.

“There are still pesticides for insects and fungicides for parasites. It’s a monoculture that kills biodiversity and fills our rivers with chemicals.”

‘Green’ alternatives

“I have nothing against Christmas trees. I have good memories of decorating them when I was a girl,” says André.

“But times have changed. We are living in an ecological transition. Everything that pollutes has to stop. People in cities are fooled by marketing that says Christmas trees are ‘natural’ — as if they were all from a magical forest. The reality is that it is a form of intensive agriculture.”

It’s not just environmental activists who question the ethics of Christmas trees.

French consumers are also increasingly curious about where their pine trees come from.

Is it responsible, they ask, to accelerate the growth of millions of young trees only to have them cut down and kept in living rooms for two or three weeks?

Speaking to locals near a tree supplier in central Paris, everyone we questioned said that the environment was now an important factor in their choice of whether or not to have a Christmas tree.

Some said they had stopped buying them altogether. For others, it was a dilemma. While they recognized the environmental impact of plantations, they questioned whether importing a plastic tree from China would really be a better alternative.

Few have considered “green” alternatives such as wooden tree sculptures or homemade assemblies.

According to producers in the region, buyers are increasingly curious about the origin of their trees. But so far this has only had a marginal effect on sales.

At the company Naudet de Planchez, which has been growing Christmas trees since 1956, spokespeople admit that in the past little attention was paid to the problems of herbicides. But that has changed, they say.

“All the criticism we receive is based on a complete ignorance of our current practices,” said director general Martin Naudet.

“We are making huge efforts to minimize the use of chemicals and there is a lot of biodiversity.”

In a nearby plantation, they showed us rows of trees where the grass actually looked rich and abundant. In another field, they were sowing buckwheat (sarrasin) between the rows, serving as a natural weed suppressant.

Martin Naudet points out that only 1% of viable agricultural land in Morvan is dedicated to Christmas trees. In the vast expanse of hills and forests, plantations make up only a small part of the landscape.

But the fact remains that virtually no Christmas tree production is chemical-free. “People tried,” says Martin Naudet. “But the trees don’t sell. They’re very expensive and they don’t look good.”

In other words, our green Christmas trees aren’t so “green” after all.

This text was originally published here.