Since the beginning of October, workers can be seen in the middle of the core zones of the Minett UNESCO Biosphere, cutting down trees and using excavators to work the soil of the protected areas.

No destruction of the protected areas

These are de-bushing works commissioned by the Nature Administration and necessary to preserve the characteristics of our Biosphere Reserve.

At the end of October, in the valley of the Crosnière, near Lasauvage, workers were restoring a small former open pit mine. After the closedown of this open pit mine, the forest had spread again, over the last decades, on the bare rocks left by the mining. Before the first trees could take root here, however, this open pit had already become a habitat for lizards, butterflies, insects, orchids and the fringed gentian. Species that are still present here, to which survival will become more difficult every year due to the spread of the forest.

Creating open spaces

These inhabitants of our biosphere need open spaces, with rocky retreats, in order to flourish, and it is precisely for this reason that the area in Groussebësch was de-bushed this fall. With the work currently carried out, the ecological diversity in this area can be preserved in the coming years and a corridor is created that can connect the Groussebësch with the open land areas of the Kiermerchen, another part of the core zone “Kiermerchen/Scheiergronn/Groussebësch” in order to facilitate the genetic exchange between the species living here.

Further de-bushing work, in other nature conservation areas of the biosphere reserve, is planned for the next few weeks. These are hence only maintenance works of the core zones of the Minett UNESCO Biosphere, invisible after two years at the latest, but allowing the biodiversity in our area to consolidate and be preserved.