Who should decide on the future of the forest? The foresters who exploit it, the hunters who pay their hunting fees, the residents who frequent it… Scientists from the University of Strasbourg came to ask Aubure this question and proposed setting up a citizen laboratory.
Jacques Avalos
It was at the Aubure citizens’ hall, near Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, that loggers, hunters, residents, farmers and agents of the National Forestry Office (ONF) met on the evening of Thursday January 29. “We are all here to look at the forest, but we don’t see the same thing” shouts a forest ranger from Aubure to the assembly as a warning.
Among the forty people present, four scientists came from the University of Strasbourg to launch the first experiment of a “citizen laboratory” in the Vosges forest.
This is not the first time that the 353 inhabitants of Aubure have seen these Strasbourg academics arrive. They work at the Hydro-geochemical Environmental Observatory (OHGE) present in Aubure since 1986. Their dozens of measuring instruments are spread over 80 hectares of the municipal forest which has 325 hectares. At the Strenbach sources, it is one of the oldest observatories in the world in a watershed, which noted the consequences of acid rain in the 1980s and produced data for the CNRS, the University of Strasbourg and the Strasbourg School of Water and Environmental Engineering.
Humans are part of the forest
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