07-07-2025
Why did Napoleon drain the Marais d'Orx?
Why did a public body decide to buy the Marais d'Orx? Ludovic Charrier is the chief diplomat at the Conservatoire du Littoral (CdL) in the Aquitaine region, a public institution primarily tasked with acquiring coastal sites in France. In 2025, the Conservatoire du Littoral, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, has acquired some 220,000 hectares of coastal land in order to protect them.
So how come this institution intervened in the wetland? "In 1800, Napoleon ordered the draining of the wetlands because they were considered unhealthy, so he put them in the hands of the noblemen of the time in order to create agricultural land and ensure long-term health," explains Charrier.
Napoleon III installed a complex and innovative drainage system of pumps and dikes around the Marais d'Orx to create a polder, an area that has been reclaimed from the marsh which, once drained, is used for cultivation.
Charrier points out that this polderisation and draining of the marsh led to a great deal of development in the area. During and after the Second World War, this agri-food industrialisation generated some of the highest maize yields in France.
During this industrialisation period pumps ran on diesel and electricity, so although they were highly efficient, maintaining them was very expensive. "At one point, the landowners of the time were unable to maintain the system of pumps and dams, and water penetrated into the fields. What was bound to happen happened, every now and then half a metre or a metre of water covers the polder," explains Charrier.
The Marais d'Orx, used until the 1980s for agro-industrial purposes, is now beginning to attract the attention of the scientific community and also of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "The Conservatoire du Littoral is committed to restoring this place, previously harmed, back to nature", expresses the head of the Conservatoire du Littoral in Aquitaine with pride. With the financial support of WWF, the institution has bought 1,000 hectares of the Marais d'Orx, which was recognised as a national nature reserve in 1995.
"We have gradually started to work with the Syndicat Mixte de Gestion des Milieux Naturelles, which manages and looks after the nature reserve and proposes a comprehensive project for the restoration of the natural environment". This wetland ecosystem is being used as a renaturation experiment in France which, according to Charrier, potentially serves as a model for similar projects across Europe.
