French to say au revoir engaged in trees

Logging of these trees of plane 200 years together with the Canal du Midi is seen as a national tragedy. Photography: Travelpix Ltd/Getty Images

If you want to indulge in the shadow of the most beautiful plane trees Motley Europe canapé, go now. It is likely that in 20 years, not one of the 42,000 trees currently stretches along the banks of the Canal du Midi, which meanders from Toulouse to the Mediterranean, will still be standing. An unstoppable fungal disease has left the French State there is no choice but to reach for the chainsaw, get off the roof of leaves covering the most romantic waterway of the nation.

Logging of these trees 200 years is seen as a national tragedy. Cyclists, walkers and shipowners channel was destroyed and local politicians are panic that it revoke the canal Unesco World Heritage status, destroying the tourism. The President, Nicolas Sarkozy, smelling an opportunity to make election campaign, has promised to heal the "sadness" and the trauma and the channel to "Save".

"It is heartbreaking," says Jacques Noisette of Voies Navigables de France, which extends to the waterways.

UNESCO not still threatens to remove the channel their qualifications. But the French authorities must try to quickly can be planted in an avenue of young trees to recreate the magic of a historic canal dating from the reign of the Sun King, Louis XIV.

Two thousand trees along the channel so far have been hit by the microfungus Ceratocystis platani - which came to France via the wooden ammunition boxes contaminated American GIS in World War II. But the disease has been disseminating constantly along the canal since the it was first discovered there in 2006. It extends through the water and perhaps canal for mooring boats and transfer the fungus between the trees.

They should be chopped down and burned diseased trees, but so must the healthy surrounding. At the end of this year, 1,000 trees have been felled. Next year he will go to 4,000 and the axings number will increase steadily each year for more than one decade.

Replanting will begin at the end of this year, with a mixture of new varieties of trees more resistant to disease. But it will take 30 to 40 years to return to planting the famous leafy Lane which runs for more than 200 km for the historic centre of the South of France.

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