France’s waterways authority will begin felling thousands more plane trees along the historic Canal du Midi on Monday in its ongoing battle against the disease that is killing them, reports The Guardian.
The destruction of the trees, which will be burned where they fall, will bring the total number cut down along the Unesco site to more than 15,000 in the last nine years.
Voies Navigables de France (VNF), the country’s waterways authority, fears that all 42,000 plane trees along the 250km canal that links the Atlantic and the Mediterranean will eventually have to be removed, but it has pledged to replace them.
Built on the orders of the sun king, Louis XIV, the Canal du Midi is listed by the UN as one of the “most remarkable feats of civil engineering” but also a natural work of art.
On January 1st 1667, workers began removing the first of an estimated 7 million cubic metres of earth and rubble to create the canal.
The plane trees were added in the 1830s to strengthen its banks as well as offer shade from the relentless sun to those using the waterway and reduce evaporation. By 2006, however, it was clear that many of the trees were sick.
Specialists identified the fungus Ceratocystis platani, which is believed to have been brought to France in contaminated ammunition boxes used by US troops during the second world war.
Boat users bumping into the trees and tying mooring ropes around them are also thought to have contributed to the spread of the fungus.
Since 2006 around 13,850 trees have been felled and on Monday, workers began cutting down another 2,200.