France's eco-grazing boom: environmental success story or simply 'greenwashing'?
The practice of using sheep rather than mowers to keep down the grass in green spaces has grown massively in popularity over the last decade in France. It is seen as environmentally-friendly, quieter - and more cost effective. But behind the scenes there is fierce competition for market share between some of the companies and individuals that oversee the sheep grazing, in what can be a lucrative business. And as Floriane Louison reports, there are fears this competition can come at the price of the animals' well-being, and broader concerns that eco-grazing may amount to little more than a form of 'greenwashing'.
ItIt all began with a man who was passionate about ornithology and who was seeing birds disappearing in front of his eyes. “Even twenty-five years ago naturalists were warning about the extinction of species and I wanted to do something,” recalls landscape architect Alain Divo. He had an eco-friendly idea: to do away with machinery to cut the grass and instead use animals to look after green spaces. “As they don't eat everything, it preserves some biodiversity,” he explains. The first results proved conclusive: a number of plants grew back and with them returned insects and even some bird species. But this was the start of the 2000s and the idea failed to take hold.
