One of the most visited sites in France
A study conducted in 1995-1996 by the I.O.D. (Institut d'Observation et de Décision), consisting of an on-site survey, a telephone questionnaire and a national “Omnibus” survey, produced a minimum figure of 13 million annual visits (approximately three million visitors), confirming earlier estimates.Fontainebleau forest therefore appears to be the most visited natural site in France and one of the most keenly visited of all tourist sites, on a par with the Louvre, Mont St Michel and Notre Dame cathedral.
Where do the visitors come from, when do they come and what do they do?
Regional and départemental (county) visitor numbers
Source |
Visitors (%) |
Average number of visits per person per year |
Visits (%) |
Seine-et-Marne |
23 % |
30 |
46 % |
Paris |
25 % |
12 |
20 % |
Other Île-de-France Départements (counties) |
45 % |
11 |
33 % |
Other |
7 % |
2,5 |
1 % |
Total |
100 % |
15 |
100 % |
These figures are only indicative; a recent marketing survey in fact indicates that 60% of visits were made by those living in Seine et Marne.
Visitor numbers vary according to the time of year
Spring and autumn are the seasons that attract most visitors, with winter the least popular season, although the differences in visitor numbers between the seasons are not that great.The weekend, with over 80% of visitors, is the most popular period of the week. On average there are almost 20 times more visitors on a Saturday and Sunday than on a weekday, with a large majority of visitors coming from Seine et Marne (60% of visitors).
A wide variety of activities
Walking, often in combination with other activities (picnics, outdoor games, spotting wildlife and flora) is the principal activity, involving over 65% of visitors. Next comes nature study with those interested in seeing fauna and flora (26% and 22% of visitors respectively), then sporting activities (climbing: 14%; hiking: 13%; mountain biking: 8%; jogging: 5%; horse riding: 1%).
User expectations and dissatisfaction
Areas for improvement are mainly seen as:
Other aspects (noise, forest management, parking and other facilities, user co-existence, sporting activities) are only of concern to a very low percentage of visitors (less than 10%).Almost 41% of visitors, however, feel that nothing needs to be changed.
Local residents: a special case
One group of users remains poorly represented in terms of the survey. These are the people who live in the towns and villages local to the massif.
It is likely that these visitors, who know the forest better as they visit it more often, are more sensitive to the tranquillity of the area, to noise, to alterations to the landscape (their landscape) and to visitors who are often seen as invading their territory.
These visitors are “forest lovers”.
The Office National des Forêts takes into account the close relationship that stems from their proximity in order to ensure that the forest is not seen by its closest neighbours as an area from which they are more or less excluded.
Does Fontainebleau forest run the danger of becoming the victim of its own success?
There is every likelihood that visitors to Fontainebleau forest will increase during the next 20 years for a number of reasons: recreational visits to forests are a feature of modern life, the population living in a 40 mile radius of the forest is on the increase, and in recent years there has been a growing enthusiasm for outdoor leisure activities and the pursuit of a certain “authenticity”.
Generally speaking, the public spreads out over the many thousands of miles of forest roads and paths and it is only in certain places and limited areas that visitor numbers have had a major impact (Sables du Cul de Chien, the Gorges d’Apremont and the Gorges de Franchard).
In practice the damage identified is mainly caused by:
Ways forward:
An activities charter
Erosion is irreversible, and so certain rules have been set down by the forest management to reduce the damage. These rules are sometimes seen as excessive, but essential in looking after the area. For example, mountain bikes and horse riders have been banned from using paths narrower than two and a half metres, and riding through the undergrowth and on the sandstone “platières”. Restrictions have also placed on new climbing routes being created. Maps indicating the zones in which cycling and orienteering may take place are available to organisers of such events at the Fontainebleau forest visitor centre.
In practice, visitor impact goes beyond the immediate impact on the forest, and those managing the forest must often introduce innovative solutions to limit such impact. For example, prevention of safety problems (dangerous trees, rocks made loose by erosion) which can take the form of installing wooden steps, restricting access, fascines or sandstone reinforcement work; friction between different users (horse riders, walkers and mountain bikers on paths, for example); strict organisation of essential hunting activities; and management of parking in unauthorised areas on days with high numbers of visitors.
The large number of visitors also creates a strong demand for information and meeting this demand proves complex and costly but also essential.
Traffic relief
The large amount of road traffic that affects Fontainebleau forest on a daily basis is mainly the result of vehicles in transit; only a very small proportion of this traffic comes from visitors to the forest.
The area has been designated a Natura 2000 site and is home to managed and unmanaged biological reserves. The management of the Fontainebleau massif and its users must therefore ensure that the remarkable flora and fauna found there enjoy optimum conditions in which to flourish – quiet zones and favourable natural resources. The closing of forest roads brings tranquillity to wildlife and also to users.
In the future, the strategy adopted on the massif in terms of visitor provision will be aimed at distributing visitors by redirecting them to sites with good capacity (low risk of erosion and not ecologically sensitive) and which correspond to user expectations. This will be done by:
Fontainebleau is exceptionally rich in fauna and flora because of its particular ecological conditions: the varied topography is combined with a climate subject to Atlantic and continental influences and a diverse geology (sand, sandstone tables, chalky banks).
There are 6,600 species of wildlife (including 5,600 insects), 5,700 plant species and 2,700 species of fungi. Stands of oak mixed with beech, plains and the flat heathlands of the sandstone “platières” with their ponds, chalky grasslands on sandstone, Scots pine, rock birch and sand birch are the characteristic combinations of vegetation found in the forest.
The reserves
In 1837, the Barbizon painters led by Théodore Rousseau, became alarmed by the Water and Forest Administration’s determination to reafforest certain areas close to their village by planting coniferous trees. For these landscape artists, so keen to capture on their canvases the emotion radiating from this vast forest with its ancient trees and fantastical rocks, it was unthinkable that “the old stand of oaks at Bas Bréau, which for centuries had been spared by woodcutters and in whose heavy shade reigned this green night so full of poetry” should be deforested and replanted with Scots pine.
The cause of “their forest” was skilfully pleaded in Paris and in 1861 Napoleon III decreed that 1,097 hectares of the forest should be set aside. In this so-called “artistic section” it was agreed that “foresters may neither fell nor carry out new plantings…”.
Originally, therefore, the idea of “the protection of remarkable natural spaces” owed more to an aesthetic cause than an ecological one. The first “Artistic Reserves”, which covered an area of 1,692 hectares in 1904 and were managed by the Fontainebleau Forest Artistic Protection Committee formed in 1873, became “Biological Reserves” in 1953.
Today the series of reserves includes 580 hectares of Unmanaged Biological Reserves (free from human intervention) and 1,331 hectares of Managed Biological Reserves (specific intervention under the aegis of the Reserves’ Scientific Committee).
Veritable life-size laboratories, these biological reserves have become an integral part of the central zone of the Fontainebleau Biosphere Reserve set up in November 1998 as a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) initiative under the MAB (Man and Biosphere) programme.
Natura 2000: a Special Protection Zone (SPZ) and Special Conservation Zone (SCZ).
In 2001 the entire massif (approximately 28,000 hectares) was put forward to the European Commission for inclusion as a Natura 2000 site. Open habitats, humid habitats and forest habitats were identified and management was introduced to conserve them (SCZ). This status also applies to rare European avifauna such as the nightjar, Dartford warbler and the woodlark (SPZ).