The forest of customary rights of La Teste-de-Buch, also known as the Grande Montagne de La Teste, has covered part of the current territory of the commune of La Teste-de-Buch in Gironde since the beginning of the Christian era. In the 21st century, it remains the last user forest in France: private landowners, known as ayant-pins, hold the exclusive right to exploit pine resin on their plots but are not the owners of the trees; meanwhile, the inhabitants of the former Captal de Buch territory, known as common forests (or usagers in French), are entitled to use the wood for their personal heating and construction needs.
Growing on ancient stabilized dunes, this two thousand year oldpine-oak forest boasts a unique ecological diversity within the Landes de Gascogne. This precious ecosystem results from the unique exploitation methods maintained for centuries due to its specific legal status. Since synthetic chemistry rendered resin tapping obsolete in the 1970s and the demand for construction wood dwindled, interest from both owners and users in their shared heritage has waned. Stakeholders (owners, user defense groups, municipalities, nature conservation associations, hunters, public authorities, etc.) have failed to reach an agreement, leaving the forest neglected and poorly maintained.
In July 2022, a nearly destroyed it entirely.
Location and geography
The Forest of La Teste, documented since Roman times, grows along a coastal strip between the Arcachon Basin to the north and the Cazaux Lake to the south. It covers a series of parabolic dunes that accumulated in the region between 2000 and 500 BCE. These modest but rugged reliefs (seven dunes exceed 50 meters in height, with the highest—Truc de la Truque—peaking at 76 meters) juxtapose hills (trucs) and pseudo-valleys (bats) in a puzzling disarray, earning it the nickname "Grande Montagne."
Throughout the current era, new dune formations—of the barchan type, which formed the Pilat Dune—have isolated the forest from the ocean and progressively eroded its western and northern edges. Due to the encroachment of these modern dunes and urbanization around Arcachon, the Grande Montagne’s area has gradually decreased from around 4,600 hectares at the time of the Revolution to about 3,700 hectares at the start of the 21st century.
The forest is bordered to the southeast by Cazaux Lake, to the north by La Teste-de-Buch and Arcachon, to the northwest by the Pilat Dune, and otherwise by private or state-owned forests. Its position downwind likely contributes to maintaining the Pilat Dune’s height.
Nowadays, the Grande Montagne is crossed by the D218 departmental road, which clips its northwest corner while connecting Arcachon and Biscarosse, and by Route 214, a paved state-owned road cutting east to west through its northern third. This route links the D218 near the Pilat Dune to the D112 departmental road, which serves the Cazaux hamlet from La Teste’s main urban area. In the forest’s southern half, a network of dead-end roads provides access to oil wells established in 1959. Finally, forest paths crisscross the area, less maintained since resin tapping ceased.
Historical economic aspects
The earliest accounts of pine exploitation in the Grande Montagne date back to the 17th century.
The sought-after raw material was the tree’s oleoresin: Throughout the adult life of the pine, it was harvested by —the practice of making successive incisions in the bark. The exudate, mixed with rainwater and solid impurities and collected in a hole dug at the tree base or in a clay pot, was then called “gemme.” Every two to three weeks from spring to mid-autumn, the resin tapper would refresh the cut and gather the oozing resin. Collected in barrels, the gemme was transported to a distillery where the volatile fraction, turpentine oil, was separated from a solid residue, colophony (also known as arcanson or rousine). Turpentine oil was used to produce solvents, paints, varnishes, polishes, waxes, and medicines, while colophony was used to make paper adhesives, soaps, and printing ink.
Once the tree was dead, the pyrolysis of its trunk and stump produced pine tar (also known as pitch or tar), carbon black, and charcoal. The forest operator constructed on-site kilns (hourns), mounds of stones covered with clay: the wood burned inside releases a viscous liquid collected through an outlet. This liquid was used for caulking boats, waterproofing containers, waxing ropes, and even treating rheumatism and certain skin diseases. These practices persisted until the 1970s, gradually replaced by the rise of industrial synthetic chemistry.
Usager status
The fundamental principles governing the ownership and use of the Grande Montagne are based on texts, the oldest preserved dating back to 1468, which have been updated several times since then: baillettes (unilateral decisions by the lord) and transactions (formalized agreements between parties):
The parcels belong to private owners (the Grande Montagne is therefore neither a co-ownership nor part of the public domain). These owners are referred to as ayant-pins: they do not own the trees growing on their plots but hold the exclusive rights to commercially exploit their resin. Individuals whose primary residence has been located for at least ten years in the communes partially covered by the forest are called usagers.Therefore, a landowner can be a "having-pins" on their plot and a user of the entire forest. They may collect dead wood for heating and cut down live pines to build or repair their homes or boats, but are forbidden from commercial use. The wood collected by the usagers cannot leave the territory of these municipalities, whether for processing or use. Syndics representing ayant-pins and usagers validate logging requests, ensure sustainable harvesting through rotation, and manage the forest "as responsible stewards."
History In the Middle Ages, the Grande Montagne belonged to local lords, the Captals of Buch. These lords, from an undetermined time, granted ("leased") various rights to their vassals in exchange for compensation. Each lord who inherited the captalat freely revised these rights and their costs.
The first text (now lost) of which there is a record dates back to the first half of the 15th century: Gaston I de Foix-Grailly granted the inhabitants of the seigneury the paid rights to harvest gemmed resin (gema, galipot) and process it into pitch (rouzina), and the free right to collect firewood (busca) and construction wood (fusta). On October 19, 1468, the baillette of his son Jean de Foix-Grailly-Candale confirmed and reevaluated these rights, which were granted to around forty local families. In 1500, Gaston II de Foix-Grailly-Candale sold, for an annual lump sum, the rights to pasture (herbage) and to gather acorns (glandage) for feeding pigs.
In 1535, the baillette of introduced the appointment of syndics representing the inhabitants, prohibited the sale or transport of wood outside the captalat, and emphasized the importance of managing the forest responsibly.
In 1601, a crisis arose with the new captal, Jean-Louis d’Épernon: a new act was not signed until after three years of "closure" of the forest. It clarified that the ayant-pins acquired ownership of resin extraction concessions, but neither of the land nor the trees. His son Bernard d’Épernon reaffirmed these principles in 1645.
In 1746, François-Alain Amanieu de Ruat signed a transaction granting ayant-pins ownership of the land and limiting the rights of usagers. Following protests from the usagers, a new agreement was made on June 16, 1759: the ayant-pins retained ownership of the land, as well as their cabins and resin, but still not the trees, while the usagers regained their free rights to wood. The captal kept the rights to acorn gathering and grazing, along with the privilege of using wood for his château—despite it being located outside the territory, in Le Teich.
It was under this contractual state that the French Revolution occurred. Some usagers then sought to have the forest, a former seigneurial property, become communal land. However, the arbitral tribunal, convened on 8 Fructidor Year II (August 25, 1794), dismissed their claim, arguing that the forest had not belonged to a noble since 1746. The tribunal confirmed the ownership of the ayant-pins and the servitudes imposed on them in favor of the usagers, which were inseparable from their ownership title. At that time, there were 104 parcels held by 38 families.
In 1917, a new agreement was signed to govern the conditions for exploiting trees killed by natural disasters. This decision followed disputes between ayant-pins and usagers after a hurricane in 1897 and a fire in 1898. The agreement stipulated that the revenue from wood sales would be shared among the owners (50%), the municipalities of La Teste-de-Buch and GujanSince 1936, the territory of the commune of Gujan-Mestras also fell under the Captalat de Buch during the Ancien Régime, granting its inhabitants user rights. (33%), and a syndical fund responsible for managing common affairs between usagers and ayant-pins (17%).
Finally, various revisions were enacted in 1952, 1955, and 1977, the latter limited to a five-year duration.
Contemporary conflicts and issues Recurrent conflicts between the involved parties have marked the 20th and 21st centuries, stirring debates in the La Teste municipal council, the columns of the regional press, and the courts of Bordeaux.
The question of whether usagers can cut down oaks for firewood remains controversial. The agreements limit the felling of live oaks to construction work, but oak wood, being a higher-quality fuel than pine, was not favored by owners during the resin-tapping era. Consequently, unauthorized cuts have often occurred.
Another debate centers around if the right of use extends to the inhabitants of Cap Ferret. Until 1976, the end of the Cap Ferret peninsula was part of the commune of La Teste, before a referendum joined it to Lège for practical reasons. As residents of the former captalat territory, the approximately 2,000 year-round residents are entitled to usager rights in the forest. But it was still questioned if this privilege should be limited to those who lived there ten years before the affiliation change. The debate remains unresolved, and in 2008, a resident of Cap Ferret organized a high-profile tree felling and transport by to Cap Ferret—avoiding the wood leaving the "former boundaries of the captalat."
A similar debate concerns the residents of Arcachon, a city separated from La Teste in 1857 to facilitate urban expansion. At the time, the few inhabitants explicitly renounced their right of use in exchange for full ownership of parcels.
The stakeholders also struggle to agree on how to represent the usagers. According to the transactions, usagers are supposed to organize themselves into a union. However, under state pressure and after several legal proceedings, it was decided in 1976 that the municipal councils of La Teste and Gujan-Mestras would represent the usagers. Nevertheless, a users’ association, the ADDU-FU, tends to fill this role.
The rights of access to the forest massif are also regularly questioned: the transactions prohibit owners from blocking paths or fencing off their plots. However, motor vehicle traffic and the organization of hikes or other events are regulated.
Finally, controversies occasionally arise regarding the possibility of building or improving the structures of the hundred resin workers’ cabins identified in 1901, beyond the renovations conditionally authorized by the land use plan, in a context where land and real estate speculation is a proven temptation.
Land ownership in 2016 The 3,895.52 hectares registered in 2016 are divided into 388 parcels, grouped into 161 properties.