Human activities have shaped some of the landscapes along the Basin of Arcachon. Fishing, salt farming, fish farming, forestry, agriculture and oyster farming have all left their mark. Let’s discover these changing landscapes, the people who have developed them and those who protect them.
« Landscape » refers to an area that is natural or has been transformed by human activity.
Landscape is a natural heritage. It is inseparable from the territory in which it is found. It shows its geological and biological components as well as the traces of past and present human activities.
Landscape is a social construct that evolves over time. There is not one landscape but many.
You look at a landscape. The way you look at it changes depending on whether you were born in the area, live there or are just passing through.
A landscape can be seen, but it can also be breathed, touched or heard.
Landscape is a part of an area, as perceived by local people or visitors, which changes over time as a result of natural forces and human activity.
Shape
Working a material in order to give it a particular shape.
Physiocracy
Physiocracy was a school of economic and political thought that emerged in the 1750s and sought to create the wealth of nations through:
– Increasing the area under cultivation and agricultural yields
– Improving the circulation of goods and people
– Colonising new lands to increase productivity.
For the Bordeaux physiocrats, the area around the Arcachon Basin was ripe for conquest and development. The Marquis de Civrac was a physiocrat.
Protect
To ensure that someone or something is shielded from danger, aggression or any other risk.
Audenge communal forest
After the Revolution of 1789, the commune of Audenge recovered land from the break-up of the Certes lordship. Most of this land was moorland. Following a law passed in 1857, maritime pines were planted, adapted to this type of soil. The Landes de Gascogne forest was born. Today, with a surface area of one million hectares, it is the largest man-made forest in Western Europe. The Audenge communal forest is dedicated to timber production. While most of the forest is made up of maritime pines, there are also pedunculate oaks, Spanish oaks and coppices of birch, chestnut, alder and willow.
At Audenge, the municipal forest is managed on a continuous cover basis. The selection of trees to be kept or cut is based on the different functions assigned to each tree (production, protection, biodiversity, improvement, education, heritage, etc.). This management of the forest makes it stronger in the face of threats and helps to maintain forest ecosystems and protect landscapes. It ensures that the forest is renewed as continuously as possible.
The Conservatoire du Littoral
Created in 1975 by the French government, the Conservatoire du Littoral is a public body whose mission is to acquire threatened or degraded coastal plots and turn them into protected, welcoming sites that respect the balance of nature. It has 750 sites, including the Certes and Graveyron estates.
Rewilding
Operation enabling an environment modified by human beings to return to a state close to its natural state.
By using technology, modern societies thought they could control nature. At the start of this new millennium, we are discovering the futility of this hope. It’s time to learn to work with nature, not against it, especially when we want to protect it. By adopting ecosystem-based management (characterised by functioning as naturally as possible), as well as pioneering the free evolution of certain environments, we are moving in the direction of « Working with Nature’s spontaneity « , the source of so many benefits. It’s a different way of being in the world, one that’s consistent with the constant change it’s undergoing, where the key words are adaptation and chosen evolution.
Protected natural area
The Espaces Naturels Sensibles (protected natural areas) represent a heritage of collective interest, recognised in particular for their ecological and landscape qualities, which must be preserved and passed on.
They are home to habitats and to animal or plant species that are remarkable and/or representative of the Gironde département.
This natural heritage is classified as a Protected Natural Area as soon as it benefits from any action, including financial action, by the Gironde département and becomes subject to appropriate management.
1708: The Basin coastline, a land of milk and honey for its inhabitants
Claude Masse, the King’s engineer, described the Basin of Arcachon as a land apart, an oasis in the middle of an uninviting desert of sand and disease-ridden marshlands. On the contrary, the waters of the Basin are home to a multitude of fish and crustaceans, and numerous waterfowl live in its sandbanks. The resin used to make pitch is extracted from the pines. This bountiful natural environment provides a comfortable living for a whole nation of fishermen, resin workers and traders.
1758: The Creation of Lubec
The Marquis de Civrac wanted to give land to anyone who wished to clear it and cultivate it. A farming couple from Biganos, Jacques Gauguet and Suzanne Meynard, took up the challenge and succeeded in cultivating the moor. Other families joined them. The Lubec district was born. In 1830, a road was built as far as Audenge. In 1885, a school was opened.
1768: Managing the salt marshes
In the 18th century, agronomists from Bordeaux wanted to develop salt farming (salt production) in the area, as salt was in short supply at the time and prices were rising. The Marquis de Civrac, Captal Lord of Certes, began by building a dyke 6 km long and 15 m wide, and created salt marshes made up of canals and basins bordered by mounds called humps.
1843: Developing fish farming
Ernest Valeton de Boissière, who inherited the Certes estate (Domaine de Certes), gradually abandoned salt farming and converted the salt marshes into reservoirs for fish, which needed new hydraulic equipment. This was extensive fish farming, with the fish (mullet, sea bass, eel, etc.) feeding only on the resources provided naturally by the environment.
1857: Planting the pines
Under Napoleon III, the law of 19 June 1857 obliged communes and private owners to drain and forest their land. Ernest Valeton de Boissière undertook to transform the moorland into plantations as part of his reorganisation of the Certes estate’s farming operations. He organised the drainage of the moors and the planting of pine trees. The pines provided the resin whose market value kept pace with the growing demand for turpentine and resin used in the chemical industry.
1895: Farming
In 1895, following the death of Ernest Valeton de Boissière, two families bought the estate: the Descas family, wine merchants in Bordeaux, and the Larroque family, oyster farmers from Gujan. The Descas family bought out the Larroque family in November 1898. The buildings were organised around the rearing of cows, sheep, poultry and pigs, the running of a stud farm and the production of fodder. Fish farming remained important.
1984: Purchase of the Certes Estate (Domaine de Certes) by the Conservatoire du Littoral
The dyked estate was in a poor state of repair. On 30 March 1984, the Conservatoire du Littoral acquired 404 ha of fish reservoirs, meadows and buildings on the Domaine de Certes from Raymond Tachon, with a view to protecting it from urban development. The Gironde département has managed the estate since 1991.
1998: Acquisition of the Graveyron Estate (Domaine de Graveyron)
Following the sale by the association Les Petits Frères des Pauvres, which had inherited the estate from Anne-Marie and Françoise de Moneys d’Ordières, the Conservatoire du Littoral became the owner of the 135-hectare Domaine de Graveyron.
2017: Inauguration of the nature and biodiversity centre
A vast programme of works has been carried out by the Gironde département to guarantee a high-quality welcome for the public and preserve the biodiversity of one of the largest dyked marshes in Europe and the largest single protected area in terms of surface area in the Arcachon Basin. Since 2017, the estate has been to visitors with events all year round. It is home to a professional breeder, the Conservatoire Botanique National Sud Atlantique, a conservation and archaeological study centre and a wildlife care centre. In 2023, a new trail linking the communes of Lanton and Audenge was opened, giving access to the tombstone of Ernest Valeton de Boissière. Part of this trail is accessible to all.
2023: Future management strategy for the Estate
Besides preserving natural environments favourable to biodiversity, one of the major management objectives is to adapt to the impact of climate change by allowing certain environments to evolve freely.
Lubec
Originally, this district was called « Lubet ».
The Lord of Certes, François Eymerie de Durfort, Marquis de Civrac, had just inherited his father’s lands. It was moorland with a wood in the middle where no-one lived. The Marquis de Civrac made it known that he was thinking of giving land to anyone who wanted to clear it and cultivate it.
A farming couple from Biganos, Jacques Gauguet and Suzanne Meynard, took up the challenge and arrived in Lubet in 1758 with their children. They settled at Pujau Janton, now known as Ramouniche. The couple ploughed, turned over and prepared the land, succeeding in bringing the moor under cultivation. The Marquis de Civrac found other families who agreed to settle in Lubet.
In 1795, Lubet had 19 families and a population of 123.
Chronology of Lubec since the 19th century:
- 1830-1840: Construction of the Audenge, Hougeyra, Lubec and La Pointe road.
- 1882: Project to build the Lubec « hamlet school ».
- 1885: Opening of the mixed school with a single class.
- 1891: Extensive damage to the forest following a cyclone on 21 May.
- 1898: 35,000 pine trees burnt in a fire.
- 1914: Creation of the Lubec livestock fair.
- 1921: First Lubec fair on 27 August
- 1923: Creation of a telephone line between Audenge town hall and Lubec school.
- 1952: Commissioning of the « small » water tower.
- 1972: Closing of the school, attended by just ten pupils.
- 1976: Inauguration of the « large » water tower. Today, it distributes mains water to the whole of Audenge.
Definitions
- Lande (moor/heath): a barren area where heather, gorse, ferns and various wild plants grow.
- Physiocracy: A school of economic and political thought that emerged in the 1750s, which sought to bring happiness to people and wealth to nations by increasing cultivated land and agricultural yields. The Marquis de Civrac and Ernest Valeton de Boissière were physiocrats.
A brief history: the inventory of Jacques Gauguet & Suzanne Meynard’s belonging
Jacques Gauguet and Suzanne Meynard died in 1767. Jean Dunouguey, a notary, drew up an inventory of their property.
The notary saw, in the middle of the airial (meadow), a hut covered in straw and closed with heather, similar to the one that housed his cattle in Gujan. It was the Gauguet house.
At Ramouniche, the farming equipment consisted of a plough, a yoke, a cart, a harrow, a scythe, a waterhole, a scythe and two axes. A four-year-old mare alone was worth more than all the rest put together.
47 bushels of wheat to be used for food during the current year, which he valued at 376 pounds.
There were no goats, sheep or poultry.
The furniture in their house consisted of a pinewood table, five small chairs, a wooden chest, a bed, two copper pots, a rack, two iron pots and a small frying pan. They also had a blanket, curtains, a sheet and a tablecloth.
Robert Pierre Daisson (1891-1972)
Robert Pierre Daisson, a native of Arès, arrived in Lubec in the early 1950s. In 1954, he founded the « Rallye Lubec« , a hound-hunting team to hunt hares and then roe deer. His pack comprised 60 Billy hounds and hunted on Thursdays and Sundays. The hunt uniform is black with burgundy-red facings and the button represents a young roe deer at full gallop.
There is still a hunting team in Lubec.
The resin worker’s hut
From a place to live to a place to work
Resin-maker’s huts were a traditional dwelling in the Landes de Gascogne where the resin-maker and his family lived. The huts could be isolated in the forest or grouped together. They were scattered throughout the forest according to the different plots of land being exploited and were linked by paths. With the rise of gemmage (resin extraction) in the mid-19th century, the resin worker and his family lived in the village or in the airials. The huts were then used as shelters and places to store tools.
Gemmage / resin extraction
Maritime pine has always been grown in the Landes region, and harvesting resin dates back to ancient times. The Maignan site has yielded fragments of pitch jars from the Gallo-Roman period (pitch is a soft, sticky mixture made from resin and plant tars).
With the cultivation of the Landes following the law of 19 June 1857, which obliged local authorities and private owners to drain and forest their land, gemmage became widespread and resin was traded internationally. Thanks to gemmage, the municipal budgets of the town of Audenge increased significantly, enabling it to modernise.
The resin harvested yielded two compounds useful to the chemical industry:
- Resin (70%), which glues and waterproofs.
- Turpentine (20%), which dissolves fats, oils and waxes.
A good resin-worker could harvest 2.000 to 2.400 pines a year. With the advent of synthetic resins in the mid-twentieth century, the resin industry began to dwindle.
The resin worker’s tools
- Sarcle à peler / scraper: to remove the bark before cutting the tree.
- Hapchot/ curved axe: is used to make a notch in the trunk of the pine tree.
- Pousse-crampon / curved tool: it was hit with a wooden mallet to drive in the spike.
- Crampon / crampon: a piece of zinc positioned above the resin pot to guide the flow of resin into the pot.
- Palinette or curette / little spatula: used to clear out the pots of resin.
- Pot de résine / resin pot: a earthenware container invented in 1845 for harvesting resin. Initially, the resin was collected in a hole dug at the foot of the pine tree, then in the resin dish and finally in a small pot held at the top by a spike and at the bottom by a nail.
- Barrasquit double / double hooked tool: to remove the hardened resin.
- Escouarte / bucket: a bucket made from chestnut wood then later in metal to collect the resin contained in the pot. The bucket is then emptied into a tosse (a stone or brick pit dug into the sand).
- Amasse / collection: the task of collecting the resin (every 2 to 3 weeks), mainly done by the resin worker’s wife and children after school.
- Pitey / ladder: One-piece ladder with notches for the feet, up to 5 m long.
- Cache / ladle: a large ladle to transfer the resin from the pot to a barrel on a cart before taking it to the distillery.
Definition of Gemmage / resin extraction:
It is an operation which consists of cutting the trunk of a pine tree so that it secretes a liquid located in the sapwood of the tree (area under the bark) called gemme or sap, which allows the wound to heal. The gemmeur, or resin-worker is the person who carries out this operation and harvests the resin.
Figures:
- 26: number of full-time resin workers at the Domaine de Certes in 1953
- 40.000: In 1889, the Town Council decided to tap the pines and entrust the work to the people of Audenge, bringing them a substantial income.
Jean (aka Daniel) Digneau (1884 – 1964)
Daniel Digneau, originally from Biganos, moved to Audenge in 1917, where he was a town councillor from 1919 to 1941 and again from 1947 to 1964. He was also an arrondissement councillor and then a département councillor for Audenge from 1931. In 1920, he founded the Coopérative agricole des résineux and the Comité des bois et résineux de la Gironde, which defended and promoted forestry production. He chaired or was a member of many other organisations linked to the resin trade. He also chaired the Gironde DFCI union. Daniel Digneau was the initiator of the forest tracks, following the great fires of 1949.
In 1946, he was awarded the Legion of honour.