PROTECTION OF BIODIVERSITY

In order to ensure access to its pipelines, GRTgaz provides for easement strips along its buried pipelines. These strips of ground, measuring 10 to 24 metres in width depending on the diameter of the pipe, are construction-free zones, and are not replanted when located in woodland areas.

But it is precisely on these easement strips in woodland areas that scientists from the Conservatoire Botanique du Bassin Parisien (a scientific department of the National Museum of Natural History) have found more than one hundred species of plants, some rare and others protected.
In order to look more closely at this discovery, an agreement has been signed between GRTgaz Val-de-Seine Region, the Île-de-France Regional Council and the National Museum of Natural History, to form a joint scientific group with a view to studying the contribution of the easement strips to the preservation of natural heritage and to ecological continuity on a regional scale.

The National Museum of Natural History thus has the task of drawing up an inventory of the plant stock within the footprint of the existing pipelines, of helping GRTgaz with the planning of new pipelines and of suggesting management priorities for protecting species on these easement strips. GRTgaz and the Region are providing financial backing for this work, which is expected to last three years.

This cooperative venture is increasing GRTgaz’s know-how in infrastructure planning and in the potential enhancement of the land its pipelines run across.