Landes forest

The Landes de Gascogne (translated: " Heide ( s) of Gascogne "), even the Landes forest (translated: " heath forest " ) or simply Landes (the " moors " ) in southwestern France are the largest contiguous forest in Western Europe. Today's forest area is a formative part of the Aquitaine region and gave the department the name of the country. The forest consists mainly of maritime pines.

Geography

The Forêt the country occupies a large part of the French département of Gironde and Landes and a small part of the department of Lot- et- Garonne. To the west of the forest bordering the dunes of the Atlantic coast. In the woods, springs from the river Leyre.

Unlike many other forests in Europe of the Landes forest was created almost entirely by the people, especially to drain the swamps and marshes that prevailed earlier in the field, but also for economic use. The planting of the pines began in the 18th century in the area of the Gironde. It was used mainly the maritime pine.

In contrast to natural forests, the trees are in the Landes Forest, due to the artificial application all about the same age and same size. The forest is divided by a number of firebreaks to prevent a large-scale forest fire. Furthermore, there Firefighting several water basins and other equipment in the forest available and extensive network of footpaths enables the Rangers to control the forest regularly for potential hazards. This increases the number of devastating forest fires has declined sharply since the 1960s.

Since the 1980s, the pine forest of the Landes greater damage than any other forest area in France.