Protecting old forests

One of the key eco-responsible commitments of the EDELI brand has been, since its creation, to decide to donate 1% of our sales to the protection of natural spaces.

For all runners, nature is an ideal playground for running or trail running. From there, it has always seemed logical to us to want to protect it. And a concrete way to protect it is to invest 1% of our sales in projects aimed at preserving natural spaces.

We decided to join the collective 1% for the Planet from the beginning of the EDELI SPORTS adventure. However, the question arose of whether to donate 1% to the collective and let the association decide how to use EDELI SPORTS' contribution to a specific project or whether to choose a meaningful project ourselves, particularly appropriate for our brand and its philosophy and values. From this search for a meaningful project was born our partnership with the Conservatoire d'espaces naturels d'Auvergne and their project aimed at protecting the old forests under the Sylvae program.

Why this project to protect old forests ?

First, choosing a project to protect forests seemed appropriate for more than one reason. The forest is one of runners' favorite places. Running in the forest means being in contact and establishing a direct link with nature. When we run in the forest, we are surrounded by trees, vegetation, often on paths that are very suitable for running and easier on the joints than a road or asphalt. 

The forest is also a valuable ally in the fight against global warming since trees play a major role as carbon sinks. Through the process of photosynthesis, trees absorb carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere and produce oxygen. It should be noted that carbon storage in forests takes place in different places: more than half on the ground, about a third in the aerial biomass and the rest in the underground biomass.

Contributing to the protection of forests that play this natural role of carbon sink therefore seemed to us to be a perfectly complementary action to our eco-responsible approach of reducing our carbon footprint by favoring European production. Reducing the carbon footprint linked to the production of our technical clothing and protecting the natural carbon sinks that are forests are part of the same eco-responsible logic by different means.

Supporting the Conservatoire d'espaces naturels in Auvergne also allows us to build a link with the brand's region of origin, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. For a first project to support an association for the protection of natural spaces, it seemed logical to us to start in our region of origin, even if it means subsequently extending our support to other projects in other regions. 

Finally, we have chosen to support a protection program for old forests because these mature forests, more than young forests, are reservoirs of biodiversity in addition to being carbon sinks. In mature forests, there is indeed a greater presence of dead wood. And many species depend on the presence of this dead wood. Old trees are also places of reproduction and shelter for many species.

In France, the old forests (those present for more than two hundred years, with the presence of old wood, large wood and dead wood) represent less than 5% of the forest area in the mountains and less than 1% in the plains. It is therefore important and urgent to protect and preserve them.

What is the Sylvae forest protection program?

The philosophy of the Sylvae program is actually quite simple. It involves acquiring forest plots and leaving them to evolve freely. It is therefore essentially a program of land acquisition of forests and protection of these forests (protection mainly in the sense of absence human intervention on these plots) to allow the natural biological cycle of a forest to take place. However, the natural biological cycle of forests is measured in hundreds of years (from young plant to growing tree, to mature trees, to aging trees, then to dead trees and finally to dead wood on the ground). 

The Sylvae project is a project born in Auvergne and this project is now a national project of the network of Conservatories of natural spaces. It is also part of a European strategy EU 2030 for the protection of primary and old growth forests. 

At the end of December 2022, the Sylvae network in Auvergne included 210 hectares of old forests. 

What is the role of the Nature Conservatories?

As we have chosen to establish a partnership with the Auvergne Natural Spaces Conservatory, this article is an opportunity to also present the network of Natural Spaces Conservatories. 

A few figures to start with: there are 23 Nature Conservatories today and together they manage a network of 4,100 natural sites covering 270,000 hectares in France (mainland and overseas). Nature Conservatories are committed non-profit associations. They bring together 1,100 employees and are grouped within a national federation: the Federation of Nature Conservatories.

The Natural Space Conservatories have defined 5 key missions for the entire network: know, protect, manage, enhance and support.

• Know : scientific and technical expertise is one of the pillars of the action of the Conservatories of natural spaces in partnership with the French Office for Biodiversity , National Botanical Conservatories , Regional Natural Parks , Nature Reserves , National Forestry Office , naturalist associations, etc.
• Protect : the protection of a site is carried out essentially by resorting to land control (acquisition of property as in the framework of the Sylvae program) and to the control of use (via contracts with the owners and management agreements). The network of Conservatories of natural spaces is the first network for the protection of natural environments in France.
• Manage : management objectives are defined according to the issues identified on each site and broken down into concrete actions in site management plans and validated by the Scientific Council. Management plans already exist for more than 3,000 sites.
• Promote : the Natural Space Conservatories also have the mission of raising awareness among all audiences of the risks and threats faced by natural spaces and the species they host, for example through interventions in schools or volunteer projects to restore or manage sites.
• Support : the support and coordination of public policies relating to biodiversity, water and agriculture are also part of the missions of the Conservatories of natural spaces, in order to contribute to the sustainable development of the territories.

Participate on our scale in the protection of old forests thanks to this partnership with the Conservatoire d'espaces naturels d'Auvergne ultimately allows us not only to become more aware of the luck we have as runners to be able to be in the middle of nature and in particular in the forest, but also to contribute concretely to their protection and preservation. 

We were looking for a meaningful project, in line with the philosophy of our brand and our practice of running and trail running. We found it and I hope that we will be able to contribute in the long term to the development of the Sylvae program.

For more information on the Auvergne Natural Spaces Conservatory, here is the address of their website: https://cen-auvergne.fr/