Artistic observatory

In March, Ridha Dhib, a French-tunisian performing artist stopped in the avenue in Trampot on his way to Mardin, at he turkish-syrian border, and made a picture and a short video film of the ash tree avenue. Rate his contribution on the internet to make it exist.

In June, Constance Fulda was here again to continue her rubbings of the ash trees in front of a mixed public, among which a group of volunteer firefighters and junior firefighters. Almost half of the trees have now had their calligraphy revealed, which represents more than 50 m of paintings. No doubt that when all the trees will have been "recorded" and when the monumental work will eventually be exhibited, the public will experience  strong feelings. Constance's exhibition of 10m high rubbings (the last vision of some of the oak trees which will be used to rebuild Notre-Dame's roof in Paris) in the village church during the week-end caused an "aesthetic shock to many. The event inspired French main newspaper Le Monde with an invitation to discover France through 5 of its tree avenues: in Trampot, but also in Ayguevives, near Toulouse, or closer to Paris, in Heudicourt, Montgeron and Compiègne.

Annual Meeting of avenue managers and professionals 

It was our first Annual meeting aimed at avenue managers and professionals. There was an interesting variety of participants: road managers, landscape architects, tree experts, climbing arborists, etc. Their concerns are not completely identical, and in spite of some possible frustration, this variety makes the discussions more interesting.

It seems that we met the expectations of the participants, both regarding the schedule and the agenda. The meeting was co-organized and hosted by the County Council of Haute-Garonne (the county around Toulouse). We started the day with a bus tour which took us through beautiful avenues of plane trees. We could also see and discuss the renewal (made necessary by the plane canker disease) of the iconic avenue of the Canal du Midi, the management of the county avenues and new tree plantings on the road shoulders. Bearing these pictures in mind made the presentation of the new management plan adopted by the County Council easier to understand. We then gave some food for thoughts looking at avenue policies in Germany.

The thirty-two participants expressed their wish to continue the exchanges. We will set up a collaborative platform to make sharing information, knowledge and questions easier.

This event was again an opportunity to catch the interest of the media, with a paper in a specialist magazine - Le Moniteur -!

The French decree

Tree avenues (and single rows of trees lining infrastructures) have been protected in France since 2016. There was a change earlier this year, which did not affect the spirit of the law (e.g. road safety still doesn't entitle to any derogation), but private avenues might now be excluded if they are not open to public traffic. A decree is due to be issued at the turn of the year. Its purpose is to state how to file a derogation request. We analysed the draft version and participated in the national survey in november. Many other participants shared our analysis. We hope our comments will be taken into account.

Comic strip

One excellent news, this autumn, was that Mathieu Flammarion, author and illustrator, and the prominent French publisher Actes Sud have signed the contract for our comic strip project. The other good news is that we will add a more informative part. We secretely hope that there will also be a translation into other languages... Anyway, you will have to wait until 2024 to read the french version.

Exhibition

You want to share the history of tree avenues and their benefits today? Remember that our exhibition has both English and French text! So, it is for you, too.