IFSA France organised a weekend in Alsace (East of France) in February! Everybody in the Southern Europe LC was invited, and we had a great surprise as we welcomed people from Italy, Slovakia, Germany, Austria, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Argentina, and a lot of Belgians too 🙂

We met Mr. Evrard de Turkheim who is managing 4000 ha of forest currently as an uneven-aged high stand. This includes a lot of work as maintaining and raising the forest by considering every single tree, in opposition to regular management is quite a tedious job.

After a stroll through his forest, we visited a castle of the 13th century named “Château du Schoeneck” which was built on a sandstone rock and played a crucial role during the renaissance period until the 17th century. The benevols who were restoring it showed us their hard work with passion and it was mind blowing! The forests surrounding the rocks and the castles gave a brief moment of peace and tranquillity to all of us.

We then visited a bunker of the Maginot Line, the “ouvrage du Four-à-chaux” (“ouvrage of the lime kiln”), a military fortification which was used during the Second World War that was later renovated and is now being operated as a museum which depicts the life of soldiers during the war.

In the evening, we had an International celebration Night, where everyone brought different dishes from their home countries, and we listened to Kazakh music which was played by one of our guests. We had quite some fun as everyone was really enthusiastic about sharing their culture with others in the room and it was full of IFSA spirit!

The next day, we discussed a few things about the regeneration of oaks in the beautiful forest near the village of Bouxwiller we explored a bit, despite the pouring rain.

The weekend went faster than we imagined and it was time for us to depart. We were soaked and happy together in the cute village of Bouxwiller, regretting it was already over, but always ready for the next IFSA adventure!!!

This article is written by Carole Allard de Grandmaison, Ninon Fontaine and Emilie Maurice from IFSA France.

Please email franceifsa@gmail.com for further queries.

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