Cork forests are under threat as the wine industry uses plastic stoppers

• published: 04 Aug 2015
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Lyon 1. Various waiter opens bottle 2. People select wine from wine list, 3. Various people drinking and clinking glasses for good health Plaine des Maures, near St Tropez 4. Various of cork oak forests (Foret des Maures) 5. Scar on tree where the cork has been removed 6. Set up Antoine Catar, environmentalist walking 7. SOUNDBITE: (French) Antoine Catar, environmentalist, Conservatoire Etude d'Ecosistemes en Provence "Over all it's a tree which nowadays is penalised by the drought, it is a mediterranean tree but which needs nevertheless some humidity, and this spring we didn't basically have any rain and vegetation has gone into summer without the necessary water reserve in the soil. Here we have a cork oak which suffered fire in 1979 and we can still see the traces of it; so it is said that cork oak is very resistant to fires, it is true, but if fires are too frequent the tree is drained of all resources and eventually dies". 8. Forest signs " Site naturel protege" 9. Various of forest 10. Cork forest, 11. Close up of rare orchid that grows only here 12. Various of trees attacked by parasites. 13. SOUNDBITE: (French) Antoine Catar, Environmentalist "Harvesting cork sometimes results in wounds to the tree but we have discovered that in such cavities we have rare insects that we studied with the help of WWF, especially a coleopter (beetle) that is found only here in the Massif des Maures. Interesting birds and bats can also choose these hollow trees as their home". 14. Insect on cork tree 15. Wide of La Garde Freinet, main village in Massif des Maures once living primarily on cork 16. SOUNDBITE: (French) Sebastian Slaudin, forest owners' association (audio partly covered with cutaway) "The big problem is that the forest is not "rentable". The situation is really serious. Because there is no more maintenance of the forest, less maintenance means more competition for water, more fires - well, not more fires but more damages in case of fire - and then less production, so it is a vicious circle if you want". 17. Various of La Garde Freinet 18. SOUNDBITE : (French) Vox Pop (no name available) "It needs maintenance, it is a duty, the chestnut forest and others needs to be cleaned up for the fire you know, here". 19. SOUNDBITE : (French) Vox Pop (no name available) "I don't do it (harvest the cork) any more now but have done it for sixty years" 20. SOUNDBITE : (French) Vox Pop (no name available) "We used to live on the cork and the chestnuts". 21. SOUNDBITE : (French) Vox Pop (no name available) "We picked up a lot of cork and it gave food to many landowners, not only big ones but also the small owners, it was an extra income, but now there is nothing for anybody". La Garde Freinet, Conservatoire du Patrimoine 22. Various of cork museum 23. SOUNDBITE: (French) Laurent Boudino, museum curator "The cork oak is part of our identity, because generations of villagers have worked in the factories, to make bottle tops, and the men instead used to spend a great deal of time out in the forest". 24. Cork museum old bottle top making machinery Frejus 25. Various of the last cork factory in the Var region 26. SOUNDBITE: (French) Alain Pons, cork factory owner "Wine production, or to be precise, sales, have gone down everywhere, on top of that we have to face fierce competition from new products, notably the plastic cork and the screw top". 27. Various of production in cork factory, 28. Boxes of synthetic corks. 29. SOUNDBITE (French) Romain Pons, cork factory owner's son La Garde Freinet, Conservatoire du Patrimoine 30. Various fountain 31. SOUNDBITE: (French) Vox Pop, Local resident (no name available) Lyon Various of wine bar 35. UPSOUND: (French) Female drinker You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/b79bc300a47cefcb1ee7e3a928beb2bc Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork