A meeting at L’Espérou to lay the foundations of the future association WITHévennes

During the meeting on Friday February 9 at Esperou.

Jean-Paul Coudert, l'un des intervenants, a rappelé l'installation du PNC.

Vendredi 9 février, à l'Espérou, il a été beaucoup question d'activités quatre saisons sur l'Aigoual, des difficultés rencontrées face au Parc National des Cévennes et du projet de création d'une association.

Presenting the project to create an association, its object, its reason for being, creating an exchange between the inhabitants, constituted the essential points of the order of the day of the public meeting organized Friday February 9 in the Cavalier Bénézet room at Esperou at the main initiative of Jean-Paul Coudert.

Around forty people responded to the invitation, including elected officials from the communes of Val-d'Aigoual, Dourbies, and the community of communes, traders, craftsmen, but also companies operating in the Aigoual massif as entertainers (sled dogs, horseback riding).

Four season activities

Laurent Monge-Cadet and Denis Boissière, directors of the Alti Aigoual Public Service Delegation (DSP), were present to explain the difficulties encountered by their water development project. four-season activities – for which they committed when signing the delegation contract – in the face of almost systematic refusals from the Cévennes National Park.

Jean-Paul Coudert recalls the history and genesis of the installation of the Park on the territory in 1970, the opposition of elected officials from 1968, the 14 points of commitments and promises made and forgotten for some (in reference to the book The origins of the Cévennes National Park by Karine Larissa BASSET 2010), the various actions and associations carried out from the beginning of the 1980s by elected officials and residents: " It is from this research that I came to consider essential to the survival of our territory the creation of an association which does not campaign for the dissolution of the park but for a understanding and constructive dialogues between the institution and the residents."

Created on February 23

At the end of this presentation, Laurent Monge-Cadet wanted to take the floor to share his feeling of bitterness in the face of the immobility of the situation caused by the Park's refusals to the DSP's proposals: "Creating a bike park on the massif is a project to which I have committed myself wholeheartedly. After issuing an initial favorable opinion, the Park finally refused it at the last moment under the pretext of passages harming the evolution and natural habitation of species. Faced with this inaction, I left my mandate within the DSP. I will support the association and help bring it together to succeed."

Before leaving room for exchanges with the public and non-exhaustively listing the ideas and grievances, Denis Boissière wanted to respond to the article published in our edition of January 28, 2024 in which the Parc deplores "the choice of massive investment by Alti Aigoual in technologies such as artificial snow and not to diversify."< /em>