One Voice takes legal action to preserve nature in a town in the Indre-et-Loire region
In Luynes, environmental damage is multiplying. The Indre-et-Loire town knowingly allows everyone from businesses to circus performers to damage its territory, increasing the risk of flooding, polluting the soil, destroying the flora, endangering animals… In the face of such acts, and thanks to Anticor 41, our partner on this case and provider of the original information, we are filing a complaint against those responsible, starting with the mayor.
The town of Luynes is inhabited by many animals who gather there: skylarks, great cormorants, squirrels, badgers… and so many others, like the many birds that theoretically find refuge in this Natura 2000 Zone – known as the Special Protection Area (SPA) of the Loire Valley in the Indre-et-Loire region – a haven of peace. You’d be tempted to think that they’d be living in peace and quiet, surrounded by greenery. Not so. Since 2012, the Georget circus has settled close to the SPA thanks to an agreement signed with the town council. At the end of 2022, it even used its good relations with the mayor to obtain an unauthorized cleaning of the Petite Bresme stream… significantly increasing the risk of flooding. A crime that should never have gone unpunished. And yet: in July 2024, the circus performers saw their partnership with the town renewed. As if nothing had happened…
Luynes launches an attack on… biodiversity
Not far away, from September 12 to 15, the ninth edition of the “Luynes à l’assaut de l’Amérique” festival did even better. For four days, no fewer than 50,000 people trampled happily on a natural area. To accommodate them, trees had been illegally cut down to create paths and sites for tents and other activities, completely destroying ecosystems and bird habitats. To get there, the organizers had thought of everything: all the 4×4s and other military vehicles had to do was cross the ford of the Petite Bresme. And so much the worse if this flouted the Environmental Code, damaging the banks of the river and the shelter of the animals. Added to all this was an illegal electrical connection at the heart of nature and, icing on the cake, the disposal of festival-goers’ waste water… in a ditch.
Destruction everywhere, in the woods…
In the Les Pins industrial zone, this time it was a wood that had been completely destroyed, even though it was protected by the town local urban masterplan (PLU). No matter: the owner of the site set fire to his plot and got rid of the vegetation that bothered him, without any authorization whatsoever. To avoid any problems, the town council was quick to accommodate the perpetrator, retroactively “regularizing” the situation and revising its PLU to lift the zone’s protection. Once again, out of sight, out of mind.
… and in wetlands
Last but not least, a pond has been wiped off the map and replaced by a land destined for landfill, for the love of the Dérichebourg company. Here, wooden pallets that should be recycled are abandoned in the wild without authorization, to the detriment of the water tables and the flora and fauna of this wetland turned landfill, without any controls ever being carried out.
In the name of the damaged ecosystems in Luynes, and of all the animals that find refuge there and are systematically sacrificed on the altar of human interests, we are lodging a complaint against the town’s mayor, the managers of the Georget circus, those in charge of the “Luynes à l’assaut de l’Amérique” festival and the Dérichebourg company.