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Cleaning up the banks of the Loire – a social inclusion project

Cleaning up the banks of the Loire – a social inclusion project

Published on 20 October 2006 - Updated 22 December 2010
Cet article date d'il y a plus de 18 ans

Landscape and development, Mission Val de Loire

The social inclusion project to clean up the banks of the Loire within the UNESCO World Heritage site has now begun. The project, instigated by the Val de Loire Mission and the Caisse d’Epargne Centre Val de Loire, got underway at the beginning of October.

The rich heritage of the Loire begins right on the banks of the river itself. Preserving these remarkable natural spaces and maintaining their biodiversity is one of the challenges for the quality of the landscapes in the Val de Loire, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Val de Loire Mission and the Caisse d’Epargne Centre Val de Loire are leading this innovative initiative, which aims to achieve three objectives within a framework of sustainable development:

highlighting some of the remarkable characteristics of the landscapes of the Loire;
setting up social inclusion projects based around actions that serve the public interest;
making communities living on the banks of the river aware of the standard of care needed to protect the environment.

Ten pilot sites have been selected for works to maintain the banks of the river in the Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher departments.

As a result of €126,400 of funding contributed by the Caisse d’Epargne Centre Val de Loire - in the form of special credits granted to projects that serve the public interest and support social solidarity and the fight against exclusion - social reintegration companies (which run as normal businesses but which also have a role in bringing people who have been excluded from the labour market back into the workforce) have been appointed following a call for proposals.

The partnership creates a close link between the Conservatoire du Patrimoine naturel (Natural Heritage Conservation Centre) of the Centre region, which has been tasked with lending its expertise in environmental matters in defining the work to be done and assessing how it is carried out, and the CPIE Touraine Val de Loire, the local environmental initiatives centre, in training the teams from the social reintegration companies to broaden their knowledge of the natural and river heritage of the Loire and ways of maintaining it that are compatible with respect for its fauna and flora.