Three years after devastating wildfires along one of France and Europe’s most notable coastlines, and ahead of the summer season, tempers are flaring over how best to preserve the protected natural site from the effects of tourism.
The Dune du Pilat, Europe’s tallest sand dune, is located southwest of Bordeaux on France’s Atlantic coast. Its dimensions change frequently due to wind and coastal erosion but at just under 3 km long and around 100 metres in height, it is a popular tourist attraction and paragliding mecca that draws over two million visitors per year.
The road to paradise
But, in 2022, wildfires sparked by a badly parked small truck that went up in flames destroyed over 30,000 hectares of the nearby maritime pine forests and grasses – vegetation that is crucial to the dune’s survival. Five campsites were burnt to the ground and three have not yet fully re-opened. Amid discussions over the future of commercial activity in the zone, attention has focused on development work, illegal and otherwise, that has divided locals.
“The road to paradise starts here,” one chef at a local beach restaurant told AFP. “But they are destroying it, concreting it over.” His words are echoed by the president of an environmental group who is critical of the “unbelievable” permits for reconstruction delivered by authorities in 2023. “The site was completely f***ed,” he said, arguing that “restoring it will be very complicated.”
A 2024 report by the General Inspectorate for the Environment and Sustainable Development agrees, denouncing the way authorities have prioritised reconstruction over landscape preservation as “deplorable.”
A balanced approach needed at the “open natural site”
Measures to protect the dune and its fragile ecosystem have included shifting the area’s only car park, a mixed-management facility, further away from areas at risk by putting in place a large pedestrian area. But, despite kilometres of signs along roadside fences that forbid impromptu parking, the car park itself has not been made any larger, raising questions over what will happen when the influx of summer tourists arrives.
The president of the management group, Nathalie Le Yondre, has called for a balance to be struck, pointing out the impossibility of fully fencing off what is “an open natural site.” Instead, coordinating to ensure that tourist footfall is spread out and raising awareness of the sensitive nature of the site are more realistic actions, she says.
Meanwhile, local businesses recognise both the environmental reality of the situation and the economics at stake. Referring to the eastward migration of the dune, Franck Couderc, the only campsite manager who agreed to speak to France24, said: “We’ll be gone in 15 years anyway. In the meantime, we represent 300 local jobs.”
Travel Tomorrow contacted the Mayor’s office of La Teste-de-Buch for comment but had not received a response by the time of publication.
