Cooperation Offer

Rural Development and Water Quality

Offer name: 
Rural Development and Water Quality
Expiry date: 
01/02/2018
Offering LAG: 
Pays Loue Lison
Country:
  • France
Spoken languages:
  • English - French

Looking to cooperate with

Type of partner: 

Concerning organization, we are looking for areas which offer the possibility of working with the equivalent of our LAG. Preparatory work with our future partners will be necessary before real cooperation can start with the writing of the partnership agreement. From a tourism point of view, the areas concerned by the project should have one or several rivers attracting tourists keen on angling and kayaking. These areas should also offer different points of interest linked to the karst geomorphology such as climbing and potholing. Most important, we would like to be in touch with rural areas which have been faced with environmental problems concerning their rivers, especially regions in which pilot projects were carried out to fight pollution.

Type of area:
  • Inland, Lakes & rivers

Project idea

Project type:
    • Transnational cooperation
    • Cross - border cooperation
    • Transnational cooperation
    • With other MSs (no shared border)
Project topic:
    • Knowledge transfer / education / training activities
    • Agriculture & Farming
    • Forestry
    • Tourism / Territorial branding
    • Natural environment & Resources / Landscape
Context: 

The idea of a European cooperation appeared very early during the elaboration of our first LEADER project. Tourism professionals, hydro-geologists, environmental NGOs, farmers and foresters were curious to know how foreign countries deal with their economic development in a karst environment. Moreover, our LAG team met a local NGO working on a comparative study of la Loue with a Croatian river, la Kupa.

Project idea summary: 

Our LAG is located on a hilly, limestone plateau. The Pays Loue Lison is the LAG zone, located 25km south of Besançon. There are approximately 25,000 inhabitants on 68,000 hectares half covered by forest. Two of the three major towns are located in the Loue valley. Ornans is the most important town with 4,223 inhabitants. Quingey has 1,361 inhabitants. Amancey, located on a limestone plateau, has a population of 661. The rest of the population is distributed in 74 small villages. The lowest point is 231 meters high and the highest stands at 911 meters. Comté cheese is produced here, and farmers must meet severe specifications to produce it, which has a positive impact on landscape preservation. These landscapes were beautifully painted by now world-famous Gustave Courbet who lived in Ornans. The European programme Natura 2000 covers 30% of the territory whose biodiversity is particularly rich. There are also a few industries in the area such as Alstom and smaller factories.
The landscape is shaped by farming and forestry, as well as by two famous rivers, la Loue and le Lison, attracting many anglers. But a few years ago, the Loue suffered a massive destruction of its fish resources due to human activities. To understand how all this happened, the local university has conducted research over several years and we have developed various programmes to fight pollution. The inhabitants are working together with concerned associations, one of which was awarded both a French and an American prize from the International Game Fishing Association, in recognition of its commitment to ameliorate the quality of rivers. We realize that our karst topography poses difficulties for the filtering of waste. We are looking for European areas with similar geographical characteristics to exchange:
- On river pollution.
- On the link between limestone and pollution.
- On the way to make human activities more sustainable regarding these problems.

Objectives: 

We would like to share our experiences with different areas, for example :
- Areas of more or less similar development in a preserved environment.
- Areas with similar geographical and economic characteristics, to exchange about farming and local produce, sustainable urbanization , forestry.
- We are also concerned with tourism and particularly the best way to develop angling without disturbing the biology of rivers.

All these points should be taken into account the pros and cons of a karst topography. We are still discussing with local partners such as NGOs, hydro biologists and rural development professionals to find the best way to cooperate on a common project for the benefit of all. Our potential partners are welcome to share our discussions.