HISTORY

The forest of the Landes (in gascon : las lanas) of Biscay is a forest in the South-West of the France located in News-Aquitaine. With an area of close to one million hectares1, it is the largest artificial forest ofWestern Europe .

Bordered by the Atlantic Ocean (Silver Coast), she forms a broad triangle covering three departments (Gironde, Landes and Lot-et-Garonne), whose summits are evidenced by the points of serious (in the North), Hossegor (in the South) and Nérac (to the East).

Mainly private , it has a few parts Crown located near the Atlantic coast.

Plantations consist mainly of maritime pine . They currently cover an area of 950,000 new ha about3 .
Unlike many other European forests, it consists almost entirely of forest planted and exploited industrially.

Part of the forest of the Landes is of natural origin. Certain areas of the gascon coast were already wooded two thousand years ago and were almost 200 000 ha
The will to implement the forest is due to several reasons which emerged at the same time during the XIXe century. The first was to fix the mobile dunes of the coastline that threatened villages.

the Act of June 19, 1857 rang the death knell for the pastoral system, and gave birth to the great forest of the Landes region we know today.