French regional green and blue infrastructures: how do they take into account the national ecological connectivities?

Abstract

The "trame verte et bleue" (green and blue network) is a public policy that the Ministry of the environment started in 2007 to protect and restore ecological networks at the national, regional and local scales in France. At the national scale, a policy framework includes the ecological connectivities of "national importance" named CEIN. The French regions had to take them into account within their regional schemes, named SRCE. Now that SRCE are adopted, it is time to have an overview of this new and original system and to evaluate its effectiveness and efficiency. The methods used by the regions to take into account the CEIN have been identified. The results show that the majority of the regions have demonstrated, after having identified their network, that they take the CEINs into account. Yet, an independent assessment is needed to verify that these national stakes were sufficiently taken into account. This study also shows that CEIN helped the regions to create interregional and transboundary corridors. Thus, this first analysis validates such a framework in its current form and conception. In the future it could be extended, for example to nocturnal ecological connectivities to preserve the environment against light pollution.