Forester City of Lorient, France

Reforestation of unused areas in the municipality of Lorient

Slideshow:

Artisanal wood building and heritage conservation
Objective: 

The city of Lorient has developped an urban and local forestry partnership to supply
the city in firewood chips and building timber. This project is based on local economy
and on collaboration with local foresters to provide a sustainable management of this
resource.

  • Local production of wood to supply (energy and building timber) the city of Lorient
  • Reduce the environmental impacts of importation
  • Foster the local economy
  • Enhance the city by using abandonned sites for logging
Actions: 
  • Trees planting in urban abandoned sites
  • Sites management and maintenance
  • Eco-sourced (wood) material povision for building
Financing: 

Global (estimated) cost of the project: 200k€- 1M€

Financing mechanism: cluster1 public financing

Challenges: 

Urban Challenges: 

1. Climate issues: Climate mitigation, Climate adaptation
2. Urban water management and quality: Urban water management and quality, Flood management
3. Air quality: Air quality at district/city scale
4. Urban space and Biodiversity: Biodiversity, Urban space design
5. Urban Regeneration and Soil: Soil management
6. Resource efficiency: Raw materials
7. Public health and well-being: Quality of life
8. Environmental justice and social cohesion: Envir. Justice Procedural Justice, Envir. Justice Recognition
9. Urban planning and governance: Governance in planning
11. Green economy: Direct economic value of NBS, Circular economy

NBS Type: 

Objects Shapes / On the ground / Structures characterized by food and resource production / Urban forests

Table 1 - Ecosystem Services*

* adapted from CICES/MAES-urban

Urban and local forestry partnership to supply the city in firewood chips and building timber

Water management: 
Water flow regulation and run off mitigation
Air quality: 
Climate regulation by reduction of CO2
Regulation of air quality by urban trees and forests
Public health wellbeing: 
Noise mitigated by urban vegetation
Urban temperature regulation
Sustainable urban regeneration: 
Provisioning
Cultural
Lifecycle regulation
Green space management: 
Regulating
Lifecycle regulation
Table 2 - NBS Multiple Benefits**

** adapted from EKLIPSE's NBS Impact Evaluation Framework

Eco-sourced (wood) material povision for building

Enhancing sustainable urbanisation: 
Changing image of the urban environment
Creation of green jobs relating to construction & maintenance of NBS
Social learning about location & importance of NBS
Developing climate change mitigation: 
More energy efficient buildings
Reduction of energy in the production of new buildings and building materials

Trees planting in urban abandoned sites

Enhancing sustainable urbanisation: 
Changing image of the urban environment
Developing climate change mitigation: 
Carbon sequestration and storage
Developing climate change adaptation; improving risk management and resilience: 
Increase infiltration / Water storage
Reducing temperature at meso or micro scale
Stakeholder Participation/Participatory Planning and Governance: 
  • City of Lorient (Contractiong authority & Project manager)
  • Jean Luc Leroux, Local foresters from Ti Beo (Site maintenance, wood production)
  • Lorient municipality

GOVERNANCE MODEL:
Governance cluster: cluster2 new public
Partnership between Lorient municipality and local foresters.

Success and Limiting Factors: 

Process enablers:
Economy drivers → Public private partnerships
...

Process inhibitors:
... → ... → …
...

BUSINESS MODEL:
Business cluster: Social
Business model: Encourage sufficiency

Business cluster: Social
Business model: Adopt a stewardship role

This project is based on local production of wood to supply (energy and building timber) the city of Lorient. It allows to reduce the environmental impacts of importation, foster the local economy, and also enhance the city by using abandonned sites for logging.

Expected time for the NBS to become fully effective after its implementation: medium (between 2 to 5 years)

FeedBack: still well adapted

Expected life time of the intervention: more than 30 years 

Dates (for project delivered): ongoing (2018)

Laureate "Coucours Capitale Française de la Biodiversité" 2013 (Competition Biodiversity French Capital City - http://www.capitale-biodiversite.fr/)

Further information

Media cover:

FNCOFOR (Fédération Nationale des Communes Forestières) Website

Article of the LE TELEGRAMME magazine

Contact:

Alice Duquesnoy (alice.duquesnoy-mitjavila@plante-et-cite.fr)
Olivier Damas

Plante & Cité (https://www.plante-et-cite.fr/)
Maison du Végétal, 26 Rue Jean Dixmeras, 49000, Angers

Nature4Cities (https://www.nature4cities.eu/) aims to develop a knowledge diffusion around Nature-Based Solution (NBS) and a decision support platform through new collaborative models.

This project is part of the Nature4Cities's pioneer case studies database, it will feed the observatory, NBS pre-selection and replication tools, gathered into the Geocluster4NBS.

This project was chosen as a pioneer case study for the following reasons: the project is a combination of local economy and hedge maintenance

Nature4Cities project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 730468.