Le VIVANT qui se défend | Documentaire

Le film est à vous, gratuitement et sans pub, pour tout le monde et pour toujours.
❤️‍🔥 Faites un don pour soutenir ce film et me lancer dans la suite (un livre, un autre film…) : https://fr.tipeee.com/le-vivant-qui-se-defend/
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► ORGANISER UNE PROJECTION (de +50 spectateurs) : Ce film est fait pour être vu en GRAND et en collectif, alors suivez nos indications sur notre site https://partagercestsympa.com/ et écrivez à pcs.lefilm@gmail.com, on vous accompagnera du mieux qu’on peut dans l’organisation d’une projection dans votre coin !🎬 Vu qu’on a fait 370 avant-premières au cinéma entre juin et octobre, rassemblant 35000 spectateurices et autant de temps d’échanges et de rencontres avec des associations et collectifs qui s’activent localement, pourquoi ne pas continuer ?
► Les dates des futures projections : https://linktr.ee/pcslefilm
► Trouve une projection sur la carte : https://tr.ee/1t1faj

► CINQ ACTES :
0:00:00-0:22:41 Acte I – Attachement
0:22:41-0:37:00 Acte II – Faire Face
0:37:00-0:56:37 Acte III – Vulnérabilité
0:56:37-1:16:42 Acte IV – Alliances
1:16:42-1:29:31 Acte V – Résistances

► SYNOPSIS
Vincent Verzat filme les mobilisations écologiques depuis 10 ans sur la chaîne YouTube Partager c’est Sympa (310k abonné·es). Partant d’un récit personnel et sensible, le film “Le VIVANT qui se défend” retrace son cheminement entre militantisme et naturalisme, sa recherche d’un équilibre entre combat et contemplation, traçant un chemin pour vivre dignement et affronter ce qui vient.
Des luttes forestières du plateau des Millevaches à la tanière d’une famille de blaireaux, en passant par les méga bassines du Poitou, les cerfs du Vercors et l’autoroute A69, “Le VIVANT qui se défend” fait le lien entre les animaux sauvages et les luttes qui sont menées partout en France contre la destruction de leurs habitats.
Le film trace un chemin pour vivre dignement et affronter ce qui vient.
Un documentaire de Vincent Verzat, auto-produit et auto-distribué par Partager c’est Sympa.

► PRIX ET SELECTION EN FESTIVAL
⭐ Sélection Officielle au Festival International du Film Ornithologique (Ménigoute – FR)
⭐ Sélection Officielle au Festival Salamandre (Morges – CH)
⭐ Prix du “Meilleur Film – International” au Films for Future Festival (Zurich – CH)
⭐ Prix du “Meilleur Documentaire” au Sustain Film Festival (Guildford – UK)
⭐ Sélection Officielle au Festival de La Biolle (FR)
⭐ Prix du Public et Mention Spécial du Jury au Festival International du Film Ecologique et Social (Cannes – FR)

► DOSSIER DE PRESSE : https://tr.ee/PresseLVQSD
Contact presse : Enora Chopard presse.levivantquisedefend@gmail.com

LANGUES :
Sous titres : Anglais, Espagnol, Italien, Français
Le film existe en VERSION ANGLAISE/ENGLISH VERSION : à paraître.

► PRODUCTION
Auteur, réalisateur, monteur : Vincent Verzat
Co-auteur : Gaspard d’Allens
Bilan de la tournée d’avant-première au cinéma : 370 séances, 35k spectateurs entre Juin et le 6 novembre 2025
Date de mise en ligne YouTube : 6 novembre 2025
Auto-produit et auto-distribué par l’association Partager c’est Sympa via deux financements participatifs (1300 donateurices sur Tipeee).
Avec le soutien du centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée (CNC Talent)

Etalonnage : Victor Dagand de Mist Postproduction
Mixage son : Théo Boin de Mist Postproduction
Graphisme : Lucile Joly de Ubu studio
Motion design : Flo Brun de Ubu studio
Traduction anglaise et coach voix off : Benjamin Hollis
Enregistrement voix off : Studio Kord
Musique : ARTLIST
Chargée de production : Juliette Eynard
Chargée d’impact : Esther Lecordier
Chargé de distribution : Nicolas Landais
Chargé de tournée francophonie : Robert Stitelmann
Attachée de Presse : Enora Chopard
Images additionnelles de Bertrand Sinssaine, Olivier Escalon, Joanie Lemercier, Rudy Bueno, Antoine Lavorel, Valentin Lauféron, Vincent ‘Zenzel’ Giannesini, Jean-Luc Pillard, TéléMillevaches Rémi Masson

ISAN 0000-0007-7DC8-0000-B-0000-0000-4
Visa CNC 165.066 (code 2025002548)

We are unstoppable Another world is possible We are unstoppable Another world is possible The Paris Climate Agreement is accepted State of climate emergency Macron doesn’t want us but we’re here And one, two, three degrees Extinction Rebellion ¡No pasarán! We will force our way through It’s been 10 years now that I’ve been filming the climate movement A69 – Dead End Stop it now! The world’s destruction and all those trying to protect it The big protests The COPs Make our planet great again Acts of civil disobedience I started by filming them then I wanted to tell their story Today, 4,000 of us
are occupying an open pit coal mine My name is Vincent Verzat and this is the Vlog For Those Who Act Don’t watch us Join us We combined all our efforts in a kind of breathless frantic race I believed in the transition in the development of alternatives So what are we waiting for ? That together our goodwill would erode capitalism But we have very little time
to get moving between 5 and 10 years We wanted global warming to stay below 1,5°C by the end of the century Reversing the curve after 2020 would be much more difficult more expensive if not impossible 2020 that’s tomorrow! 5 to 10 years is nothing What am I going to do
in the next five years? We gave it our all truly we fought Step aside ! and we won a few battles We are thousands at Notre-Dame-des-Landes But ten years on we have to take stock: We are heading straight for a cliff We’ve already passed the 1,5°C mark 75 years ahead of schedule Every year that goes by is the hottest on record and the machine is only accelerating I’ve felt powerlessness like so many others of my generation Eco-anxiety as if I’d run out of breath I wore myself out Four years ago I turned to the wild I set off in search of a restorative activism One grounded in a closer relationship with nature and our shared interdependencies rooted in a landscape I wanted the world’s inhabitants to return to mine and to bind myself to their fate To broaden my horizon so I could nourish my thinking and provide new tools for our struggle To stand on two feet with one in activism the other in naturalism From contemplation to combat To slip into the breach and find hope again I’ve journeyed between noise and silence between the crowd and solitude This is my path and where it’s taken me Well then… let’s go At first I thought the greatest challenge would be
overcoming my own ignorance I’m ignorant when it comes
to fauna and flora I approach the problem intellectually I’ve never encountered what I defend Still nothing but I think I’m making too much noise No idea what that is Well I’m going home empty-handed I’m a total newbie the disguise isn’t fooling anyone I have to learn everything so I find myself some teachers I’m going to try and teach you everything I know about animal tracking The challenge will be having to
make use of your forgotten senses That’s it That’s it ! OK I’m taking on the challenge of filming wild animals in the heart of Brussels Thanks to Sandra and Thomas I record my first wildlife observations and I get emotional That is so cool! It’s just the start Vincent Oh man I’m not ready I take pictures that tell a story about our relationship with non-humans Is it a problem that people feed foxes? Oh yes it is These ones are quite plump and every year you have foxes that die because they’re overweight And you can clearly see that
they’re just sitting on the top of the bank waiting for passers-by
to throw food at them We need people to respect the fact that these are wild animals Well that’s kind of spoiled my enjoyment
of the encounter I was so excited to see foxes in person I was going crazy And then to find out that it’s actually a reflection
of problems created by humans it’s a bit… It raises questions But these videos are ten times less popular than my previous ones The Shock Doctrine When I spoke about the world’s problems politics the economy debt it actually seemed useful but in these I’m hesitant I’m unsure of the direction I’m taking and I don’t know how to combine the two But I hear about
Les Soulèvements de la Terre : The Earth Uprisings Collective They say that during their marches people stop to listen to the birds So I return to protesting I’m outside the Haute-Savoie prefecture which was padlocked very early this morning I don’t show it in my videos but whenever I have time I continue my exploration starting with my closest neighbours From my window it’s a ballet of jackdaws I’d never stopped to look at them before But they see me They’ve always looked at me The old plane tree
has been pruned so short that not a single leaf grows on it They have to move out We don’t want to cohabit But I feel like
I’m emerging from indifference The birds of our towns and villages know how to breathe life into the cracks we haven’t filled To return the world’s inhabitants to mine I decide to look for them in the gaps In those derelict spaces that no-one has known what to do with Between the tennis court the warehouse the river and the train tracks With the utmost precaution I infiltrate their territory Well, here’s a burrow I feel out of place like I don’t belong here I’m breaking into their home I’m camouflaged from head to toe which is the least I can do It’s an acknowledgment
that this isn’t our space That others inhabit it But all this is new to me Where else should I go
as quietly as possible? As slowly as possible? I’m actually stressed out
by the idea of running into an animal I’m not sure of what I saw so I return the following day
determined to clear things up The critical moment
is when you’re setting up And sometimes… I get busted He’s seen me but
he’s not sure what I am I hung there for 15 minutes
being scrutinised A small man frozen in place not daring to move an inch But in the end he accepted my presence I never imagined I’d spend
so much quality time on an abandoned industrial site realising that the wild world
really doesn’t need us understanding that whatever
space we leave them they take and beautify The most discreet way I have
of getting out of my hide is to go through the river and I’m a bit ashamed of what follows Do you have a method for removing your boots when they’re full of water? For the record: My method works. But it’s at the price of being soaked
to your buttocks That wasn’t my only encounter
with fox cubs I had another just outside my village which was also a beautiful shock I know I was lucky The Swiss naturalist Robert Hainard said: “You have to be so patient
as to tire luck out” So I spend days tracking I see signs of roe deer everywhere Tracking is our first means
of reading the world as Baptiste Morizot explained to me and I’m surprised by
how fast I learn to read the signs I guess a few hundred years of modernity haven’t wiped out thousands of years
of tracking instinct But it’s another species
that I’m tracking obsessively More than a species it’s in the footsteps of an individual that I’m walking I follow his trail until I find his burrow A badger burrow! At this point I think it’s in the bag
that I’m going to see him film him Well, not at all. It took me four months moving my only camera trap every two days constantly being reminded of my own ignorance I have no idea what it’s like to live like a badger The months go by spring sets in and the days grow longer so I lie in wait every evening hoping to catch a glimpse of him hey you oh my god Incredible! I’m feeling so many emotions to have finally seen this badger this very badger that for 4 months
I’ve been following that I’ve been seeing in my camera traps and now I’ve seen him for the first time
with my own eyes I’m so… Yeah… Moved, touched A year goes by I meet new residents but a part of me is always wondering what’s going with Petit Père? I check the camera trap every week I want to know how he’s doing I may have named him Petit Père but I’ve never thought of him as a pet I’ve never wanted to stroke him I’ve always thought of him
as a unique individual fragile It’s hard for me to talk about it even today but coming back from a shoot I hear that Petit Père was hit by a car I’m inconsolable but grateful To have been able to see
and experience all this That was beautiful! The wind is blowing in my direction
so we’re good Come on, let’s go! This is the path I’ve chosen. to take an interest in the other
beings living around me and to become attached to them To feel loss I’ve never mourned a wild animal before His death is the first that moves me I know how rare and tough it is
for a badger to reach adulthood They’ve been living like this
for millions of years We started driving cars
just over a hundred years ago The road kills 1 in 5 every year In its early days they called the car the grim reaper
because it killed children but it’s never stopped It’s changed me I’ve started measuring my environmental battles
by the scale of a badger and realising that if we gain 5 years
on a building project well that’s a whole badger’s life saved So a few days after Petit Père’s death I set off to join a campaign against a project that threatens to split an entire region in half: The A69 motorway To criticise the need
for these major projects we talk about the destruction
and fragmentation of wild habitats and the resulting loss of biodiversity But we rarely get into the ‘real’ aspects of what a road actually mean
for non-human species What is a road to a mantis? Is our way of getting around compatible with his? European bee-eaters often choose to settle
by the side of this road because they dig their nests
in the embankments But I’m scared for them Every year in Europe
200 million birds and 30 million mammals
are killed on the roads But roads are not the only cause
of habitat fragmentation It’s everything we put in their way Some species resist well Others… Less so We are even fragmenting the sky All these omnipresent barriers are practically invisible to us whereas wild animals continue
to perceive them as life-threatening As well as causing fragmentation roads are a net loss of habitat And the A69’s route
is a textbook example A flow of tarmac covering
a thousand acres of land it will save 20 minutes on the journey
between Toulouse and Castres We’re against the artificialisation
and massacre of the land for profit instead of small-scale farming. We want to support small-scale farming for a desirable future,
to fight climate chaos to have food that’s good to eat. A69 dead end This is the dead end that
we’re hurtling towards well we’re making it real. Can you guess what’s going to happen yet? After being crushed the earth is rising up too and we are the bearers of these uprisings we are the earth defending itself We are the places to be defended cultivated cared for and restored It’s our duty We are the Earth Uprisings Collective The fight against the A69 is turning into a race against time It will be months
before legal action is processed but construction continues to advance So some activists
are going on hunger strike while others are climbing into
the one hundred-year-old trees They’ll stay there 164 days Run! Over here! France already has over
a million kilometres of road That’s the European record per capita What’s frustrating is that construction
has accelerated before the protest I’m filming to present the activists
with a fait accompli: they’ve already ravaged everything what we came to defend, they’ve destroyed. So the fight intensifies We have to blow up their world
before they blow up ours Our world is the world of living things We have to break the machine force it to slow down Disarm it If setting a dozen bulldozers on fire
shocks you Try estimating the cost of destroying 53 kilometres of forest,
wetlands and farmland Construction falls behind schedule Building machinery
is now protected in a fort with a moat that’s 5 metres deep It’s like we’re in the film Avatar But the movement shows no sign
of backing down And the farm belongs to who? It belongs to us! To who? To us! To who? To us! Every new area that’s occupied and held is immediately cleared Get out of here ! Medic! Don’t be fooled for one second what’s going on here is PR It’s a message being sent out The message being that
they’ll force their way through if we oppose their destructive plans Get back! Look
aren’t they fed up defending those who set the planet on fire look what they’re doing? Their fucking grenades
are setting our land on fire This is where we live
they don’t give a fuck They’re supporting a mafia the A69 mafia I think this helps you understand
who is here in the earth’s defense and who is here to ravage it It has to fall fall fall Can you see it’s falling already ? Beautiful I feel out of sorts I don’t know what to do
with my rage and my sadness in the face of such relentlessness,
such injustice. What is aimed at is our courage
What is aimed at is our hope the desire for a better world in which we don’t keep building
more and more motorways to go faster and faster Don’t watch us Join us Don’t watch us Join us Thirty people were injured that day but the physical pain
was nothing compared to what it did to our morale The pain of having lost a
territory we’d defended A place we loved
that we’d become attached to The pain of perhaps losing a fight that we know is just Those who defend the wild often
Come up against a wall of police Grenade!
Watch out! The point of this repression is not
just to harm bodies but also to harm the spirit To cast us into a state of shock A state where escape is impossible where fighting is too and where the only option is paralysis Yeah It raises questions about
what it’s still possible to do in this kind of context obviously I don’t have the answer But I know what I wanted to film We are all eco-terrorists An unfair fight And brave people to make sure we don’t forget
what building a motorway means and what lies beneath that concrete I’m wearing myself out again so I take off I’m going from one extreme to another In activism the aim is to intrude into public space In a hide
it’s to make yourself as small as possible to see what will only
express itself when we’re silent Christian Bobin once said “Silence is the highest form of thought” “And it is by developing
that mute inner attention to the day” “that we will find our place” “in the absolute that surrounds us” Not making a sound but also masking my scent My scent is taking part in a conversation without me even grasping the words My scent is probably screaming Although I can’t describe it I’m certain that my scent inspires fear And I can see the consequences From downwind
I shouldn’t expect anything But where my scent doesn’t carry
they’ll come to me I don’t know how I ever lived without them Like an orphan
cut off from the fabric of the world But I’m here now. Grounded. It’s time for me to go home Have you ever had a mic before? No There we go first time with a mic Great! So, what are we looking at? A burrow What kind of burrow? A badger burrow And who discovered it? Me ! Can you tell us about it? Well… One day I was out cycling and I turned my head and saw this and since I knew that
my uncle filmed animals I told him And how did you know
it was a badger burrow? How did you recognise it? Well, because it’s a hole and there’s earth above it as if he were scrabbling But I still think it’s crazy that you saw it because I walk past it every day like lots of other people and we didn’t see it And you watch just one video
I made about badgers and paf you see it I was looking for wild animals all around me but I could never have imagined
that they lived in the middle of my village Ever since well I haven’t stopped seeing this animal I come here almost every other night and I try to see him But it’s really noisy Have you noticed all the noises ? Yes it’s not very… And on top of that
there’s the car headlights that light them up And you know what’s crazier
than any other burrow I’ve seen You’ve got streetlights that
actually light the burrow up And yet they’re still here And you’ve never been
to see this burrow before? No Well, let’s give it a go One, two, three
Bend your legs ! We’re there I’ve filmed them coming out
and climbing there a lot And then where do they go? Then there are several places they go to They also go into the garden next door
which is quite funny See what he’s pulled out
with his little paws? Huge stones And nobody sees this No You know what ? I’ve asked people and it’s not
so much that they don’t see it it’s that they think it must be a human being
who came with a shovel and dug up the earth In fact we think that
everything on earth was done by us No… No You know that animals
do all sorts of things When I think to myself that
there are burrows all around I say to myself : “this isn’t our home
it’s theirs” Totally It makes me happy to know
that they have a place of their own that we haven’t taken up all the space Thank you so much Eline
for showing me this burrow You’re awesome
Can I give you a hug? Yes! I’m so glad you can see
all the animals around you With my niece’s words in mind I felt my perception change and I felt the urge
to share what I was seeing Hello Had you ever noticed
that there were badgers here? Not really No… Beautiful You mean you can see them now? Yes they just went inside now I see… They had an outing Oh I see it’s moving Do you see him? Oh yeah Yeah great You just have to wait a little And there are two babies Oh really Yeah it’s beautiful And I mean we’re right
in the middle of the village Super Do you often pass by ? Yeah every day I never see them I’ve never looked What I like is that this place
will never be the same again for you That’s for sure For sure It’s inhabited now But for how much longer? Another one Another piece of fallow land razed Another burrow destroyed A burrow I’d been following for years And I ask myself: Why? Why do we destroy like this? Why are we so blind that we don’t
even realise what we’re destroying? Because this living environment
is somebody’s property Because for that human
there’s nothing on this strip of land so you might as well put it to work And they always start
by razing it to the ground But there is something here Here lived a family of badgers hundreds of birds roe deer hares martens… And even
to my immense surprise A genet cat a protected species since 1972 These are individuals that I’ve tracked
and observed these past three years Inhabitants of my village
whose lives were upended when the brush cutter arrived You can see the trail It’s not them who live among us as I had romantically thought It is us who systematically
encroach on their vital living space We who destroy it flatten it pour concrete on it for our use alone I’m gutted I’m ashamed I’m fucking ashamed What space does my world
leave for non-humans? Confetti in an anthropomorphised world They take what we leave They live in the negative of our world in what’s left But despite everything they’re still here I don’t know how to say it but I think roe deer
exude a sort of kindness And a simple way of life too I wouldn’t have thought so but watching them live up close soothes me It’s often not until nightfall when we’re all eating that they dare to venture into the open The territory is restricted and so is the time They live in between our hours But we go one step further We disrupt their climate I’m currently walking through
a forest that caught fire this summer because
of the rising temperatures we’re experiencing every summer It has hardly rained at all this autumn so the situation is only going to get worse This forest is just above my village the fire could have reached it It’s the first time that I’m confronted
with my own vulnerability Being in harmony with the
outside world means feeling within myself the threats that loom
as climate change worsens A reminder that the stakes are huge it’s quite simply a question of our survival and we can’t afford to deny it anymore We can’t pretend and dither
about the climate anymore It’s been going on for 20 years and every year that goes by means millions more people
suffering and dying But it’s not just about us or the climate In the Cantal
I see a grey shrike for the first time A beautiful bird who is so threatened by the disappearance of its
large grassland and wetland habitat that I may be seeing it
for the last time of my life Wetlands are the world’s
most fragile natural environment and the richest in terms of biodiversity They are destroyed
three times faster than forests The drought has caught up with the roe deer meadow The water tables are empty and the rivers around me are dry For the first time of my life seeing days of good weather go by without a drop of rain makes me anxious While I’m tracking I watch wildlife’s slow agony We talk about water stress but it’s all living things
that are being stressed Everyone hates the basins It’s when it’s in shortest supply that you can tell
who’s monopolising water This is the battle against the mega-basins Welcome to the war for water What we went through at Sainte Soline will remain engraved in our memories We’ll never forget what happened We became the wild rebelling
against their corn and their machine The wild hunted down by police A cornered beast waiting to be crushed This is war Medic! What are they scared of? That we were going to fill it in with our little hands is that it? Nonsense! They’re the ones who’ve decided
upon all this violence they’re the ones who are waging war I’m scared Scared like a deer The bitter sense of being prey Of being trapped, cornered in a hunt So it’s important to stand here to face it together But I’d like to run away to escape Or better still
break through their lines like a horde of wild boar And topple them Sainte Soline is also a demonstration
of our strength and our courage We will force our way through We’ve reached a tipping point in the resistance This is the first social movement against a poor adaptation to climate change Mega-basins are like an IV drip
for a dying system A short-term solution
that will only exacerbate the water shortage 30 000 people are putting
their bodies on the line because what’s at stake here goes beyond the simple sharing of water between farmers It’s the small farmers and the people against the agro-industry It’s a very strong symbol
and the comrades of the Confédération Paysanne
(agricultural union) play such an important role they’re the bearers of
a different kind of agriculture The basins are just the crack
we’re going to throw ourselves into to undermine the agro-industry
and bring it down It wasn’t a crack we found that day
but a wall A wall of armoured trucks a wall of tear-gas grenades Medic! And the heavy toll of
200 demonstrators injured 40 seriously injured with two in a coma Bring the cars, quick ! On that day
the state tried to traumatise a movement it fears the movement of
The Earth Uprisings Collective which was spreading to resist
all destructive projects and reach the critical threshold
capable of bringing them down An uprising to save the land
from the ravages of industry and commerce taking on a level of conflict and radicalism
rarely seen in France A movement that is returning to
methods of direct action occupying blocking and sabotaging A movement that
the government has unsuccessfully tried to dissolve in fact further strengthening it Aaaaah Ah! We are
the Earth Uprisings Collective! In the face of future upheavals and the brutality of capitalism we share a fragility with
all the beings around us as if we had a shared destiny We are all part of the same
community of affliction What do you think of all this? Tear gas stings We have to fight an emotional war to feel concerned attached It’s not so much
the climate or the planet that we need to save but our connection
to the world around us in its most subtle and most ordinary In our surprise before the flight
of grey herons at the dawn of winter In our emotion at the shimmering
rhythm of the seasons So when the rain finally returns I rejoice Understanding our shared vulnerability renders moments passed together even more precious I go there when I’m not feeling well When I’m feeling anxious stressed or angry about
the world’s destruction I need to see that life goes on That grazing teasing or just playing are beautiful ways to live And when they don’t come I have time to meditate About how spending
a lifetime on the wing or flowering is beautiful and just I need to feel that despite it all the cosmos is still in place Yeah I couldn’t do without them now But how can I be there for them? As well as fighting against
the destruction of their habitats couldn’t we restore damaged land? Create alliances so that nature can recover some ground? We’re near Valence in the foothills of the Vercors We’re in rivers that
have been partly exploited developed controlled in any case We’re now on the first ever beaver-inspired, low-tech river regeneration site in France. Now here’s a challenge: The river has to be prevented
from flowing through here and it has to be blocked right here so that it flows towards
the secondary canal We have an original approach which is to heal rivers heal environments Thinking that environments can be healthy, but also sick And here we’ll do the same thing Like Gaël did And according to him 80% to 90% of French rivers are sick They have three diseases: Incision
where the river no longer has shallow meanders but erodes its bed and sinks into a channel This incision causes a disconnection The river is no longer
connected to its environment which needs water The third disease is simplification: the river has only one mode of action to accelerate straight ahead This is a river that’s been reduced
to a motorway A motorway is handy for travelling on but it’s uninhabitable Faced with this what we imagine is to try to heal or rather to care for,
so that the river heals itself When there’s incision
we’ll allow it to heal When it’s disconnected
we’ll reconnect it And when it’s simplified we’re going to pluralise it
complexify it And that’s what we did higher up Just like the beavers You can carry huge logs
without getting tired They’re stuffing the dam with brambles It’s amazing
the dams are really effective As soon as they’re woven paf! The water level rises
until they overflow And as we make our way upstream the results are clear Wow! Now you can see the diversity of
everything it does it speeds up
it slows down it rises
it falls it swirls on gravel on sand
on vegetation on humus It’s completely reconnected
itself to the earth and every time there’s a flash flood it takes up all the space breaking the energy of the flood wave and protecting us from flooding It’s Bali in the Drôme A beaver can come back and amplify this dam indefinitely If the river had remained incised Every year the flood would have ripped his dam And that’s when we talk about
alliance and reciprocity We built him a habitat and he heals the environment for us We mimic him to produce the same effects but also to build his habitat so he returns and takes over the work And as a keystone animal if he transforms the environment it will benefit all the local species. And since this transformation
of the environment rehydrates reconnects and adds complexity it cures the river’s illnesses
and all life benefits including us because dried-out environments
become rehydrated environments at risk of burning
become buffers against fires environments destroyed by floods
become resilient to flooding Except that where I live well I’ve never seen any beavers The river is sick and there’s no work planned But the wild hasn’t had its last laugh I can’t get over it I did not expect that at all The day after working with Baptiste I set up in my river and see a strange log that sinks underwater And then I see its tail A beaver! This stream is dry
three quarters of the year and I go up it just once and I come across a beaver But it’s… The symbolism is just too crazy Yes the river is sick but life is just begging to return and the ecosystem’s engineer is already here One day soon I’ll come and give them a helping hand As well as tracking I’m starting to take an interest in forests I imagine them as the ideal
habitat for wild animals But I’m illiterate
I have no grasp of forestry There’s a study in the United States that says that a child can distinguish
1,000 brand logos but can’t recognise 10 plant or tree leaves I am that child and I know I’m not the only one The forest is a distant green patchwork a backdrop at the fringe of our lives We know almost nothing about
how it works or what it has to offer We have collectively lost touch with it and we wrongly believe that
we no longer depend on it The forest doesn’t need to burn it’s already disappeared from
most people’s minds Just like when it comes to wildlife I feel like I’m arriving too late With France relance
the government is investing in a France that is more ecological more competitive and more supportive France Relance
the France that becomes a reality The French government’s economic
recovery plan or “France relance” is putting the forest to work It needs to be more productive To adapt both to climate change
and industry needs The government has announced that it plans to plant 1 billion trees in 10 years But for that to happen
you need space You need to raze forests of diverse deciduous woodland that have grown naturally on abandoned farmland That’s what the industry
doesn’t want you to see a clear-cut in a deciduous forest to harvest wood for energy production This isn’t just a small thinning that’s a term for removing a few trees Here they’ve razed everything to make that mound of trees of oaks, alder, hornbeam it’s 100 metres long and it’s destined exclusively
for energy production We’re condemning this this is actually a ransacking logic it’s not sustainable forest management
it’s ransacking Have you ever seen anything like this? No, never this size You can see the birds
looking for a bit of habitat by climbing on the pieces of wood there Can you imagine the animals in there Where do they actually go? This forest was like 80% of French forests it was young, less than 100 years old but it’s precisely these unexploited forests that have real potential for storing carbon It’s giga tonnes they could be storing over the next 200 to 300 years so there’s real potential there Not only is it being cut down but the soil is destroyed so even more C02 is emitted That’s not sustainable not at all It’s actually abuse this is bullshit ! and it has to stop ! Honestly
at this point I’m depressed What I don’t dare say what I haven’t dared to say is that the further I delve into forestry the more I feel solastalgia The feeling of loss
of mourning for something I’ve never even known This photo really triggered a shock for me These trees were cut down
in California in the United States at the very beginning of the 20th century I didn’t even think a tree
could grow that big And these photos already show devastation Monuments chopped down
and put on a train My whole life I’ve known nothing but teenage forests I’ve never known what a forest really is A forest that could have completed its cycle to the full and been fulfilled An old forest A tree like that won’t even
sell because it’s too big It doesn’t fit into the
automated sawmill scales They lose money if they
let trees age that much It’s so absurd that I can’t accept it and I’m not the only one I’m going to the Limousin plateau where a political activist and perceptive history of
the forest is being written So now Vincent
we’re entering a forest with hundred-year-old beeches We’re in a forest that’s very alive
and relatively diversified since we’ll find beech
oak and birch trees Where the soil is also alive
as I’ve just shown you We have mushrooms,
life in the soil Are you attached to these forests? Very much so I love to walk here to recharge, pick mushrooms too An not only am I attached to them
but I’m also very aware of the services that these environments provide for us It was to oppose the
cutting down of a forest like this one that
I got on a harvester I’m on the harvester
the guy is still cutting Normally he has to stop
work on the site This forest has been nibbled away for years I noted that in the course of three years 125 acres of living forest
had been razed to the ground so this really was the plot
with the oldest trees And that was the last straw the cut too many That clear-cut couldn’t be prevented and I hear that the devastation
is only just beginning We’re in front of the Farge bois
factory in Aigleton their plan is to expand and double production capacity To reach a volume of 650,000 cubic metres
of wood per year The plant will require 4,000 acres of clear-cutting each year putting pressure on
all the forests in the area See the Memac cut? The 250 acre cut Well it’s a mega clear-cut and it’s typically the kind of cut that will feed
the Farge mega-plant It’s a mining industry
whose resource is wood which sees the forest as
a reserve to be exploited but that will sooner or later
be exhausted by their practice Where are we? We’re now in… in the Bois du chat in the part that we managed to
save from being cut down It’s true that this wood
is a private wood so the trees you see
don’t belong to us but you have to look
at a forest differently A forest isn’t just planks
of wood standing upright It’s about so many other things like the quality of the air
the water and the biodiversity
that a forest shelters It goes way beyond private property How did you save it? So once we were alerted,
we decided that these woods to which everyone was very attached,
should not be felled we set up an information sharing network and above all decided to
keep watch over the woods while we waited for any work to resume so that was tiring because you had to get up before dawn and come here
it was pretty cold and it lasted several months
until the day when… Come on everyone ! Lumberjacks, don’t take sides! Step back it’s too late, we’re here
we’re with you but we can’t let this happen There are other ways of doing things This way of doing things is over it’s bygone and it’s unfortunate but that’s the way it is You’re on private land So what ? You’re contravening employment law You are therefore in breach of the law So it was quite easy to stop them And we took advantage of
this period to ask ourselves what we were going to do and how we were going to prevent
the felling from continuing It really was the people of
the village of Tarnac who rallied round from Tarnac and the surrounding area You can tell from one end of the plot to the other that the whistles are powerful Just now
they really guided us We really learnt as we went it was a mobilisation that gave us a lot of knowledge
about all the legal aspects: What is a land management plan? Was Natura 2000 conservation
status a real protection? Actually no
it wasn’t It’s just a way of advising people informing them of how best
to protect the environment but it’s not legal protection Regarding the legality
or illegality of a cutting in the case of the Bois du chat there was an element
of illegality in this cut Official reports were made
to the French Office for Biodiversity and consequent fines We learned all this So all those who want to
protect their own forest We need to tell them to get involved
but also to get informed very quickly That’s why we’ve created a kind of protocol a guide called ‘Vigie feuillu’ The aim is to monitor the
area’s deciduous forests and take action to prevent them
from being destroyed by clear-cutting We tell people to set up
groups everywhere Ideally
I would say that in every village in every town
there should be someone saying: We have to pay attention because forests
are being attacked everywhere We need to be a few vigilant citizens
in the area where we live prepared to defend it if necessary and have the tools to do so Fifteen acres of forest is a small area The story of the Bois du chat
is a small one but it’s a story that has built momentum It’s become symbolic
above all because we’re proving that we can do it
that we can stop a clear-cut We’re going to continue to
widen the circle around us around these 15 acres
we hope to save Who knows ? Hundreds
thousands of acres We have to try everywhere It’s beautiful what
they’ve managed to do here I feel like I’m moving This is how it feels
to fight for and in forests with an approach that’s both
perceptive and political Being attached to the forest is
becoming obvious to me Who else can turn solar energy
into a living body? Who else can summon clouds
and make rain fall? Who regenerates the soil
and purifies water? Who eases temperatures gone mad? Who filters the pollutants
from our contaminated air? In the end who grants life? France’s forests are at a crossroads How long are we going to
let the industry cut down deciduous forests to replace
them with fields of conifers? How long will we let them tell us that a tree is mature when
it’s just 40 years old? Why hasn’t there been a
mass movement into the forest to defend what we hold dear? Why don’t we have a forest uprising? Maybe that forest uprising is coming In Guéret
unprecedented collective action is being taken against the
Biosyl wood-pellet plant which is threatening the hardwood
forests of the Limousin region They’re setting up a lookout to make sure
the biosyl plant doesn’t go ahead to make sure the forest stays alive Have you ever seen such
a big forest-related protest? No, I must say… This is the biggest I’ve seen so far That’s good
it means it’s rising In the protest I find Gaspard Tell me, have you ever
seen a protest like this? I don’t think so
You can tell something is happening You can tell that people feel concerned that they are starting to take
action on forestry issues Before, it was something
on the edge of our lives something we didn’t really talk about that people struggled
to get involved with Now it’s back at the centre
of our political attention and I think that’s a
real source of hope I think there’s also a lot at stake here
in terms of political affect about how and why we mobilise And there was a sign from
a naturalist friend of mine which read ‘we can hear the trees crying’ It says something about making our feelings political about feeling connected to ecosystems, to living things that the forest isn’t just a field of trees but something we feel bound to We have to strengthen those links this protest is part of that and this movement to defend forests
has to keep growing And I think we’re at
the dawn of something There’s an alliance taking shape, with people from the CGT union,
forestry workers forestry experts, citizen collectives, associations… So now it’s starting to happen
it’s starting to move it’s coming out of the woods
and that brings hope Vigils are also being set up
where I live Because in my area too a territorial development project
is being forced through It’s nothing huge
just a road diversion and concreting project like
so many others in France Just a 15m wide strip of tarmac that will run 10m from the fox burrow 30m from the badger burrow over the beaver through the roe deers’ territory to save us a few minutes of
traffic jams at rush hour Just one road
just one more that will allow even more farmland
to be nibbled away from the Rhône as if we haven’t already done
enough of that over the last 50 years But luckily the people here are determined
not to let this diversion go ahead That brings hope Here as elsewhere collectives are rising up to oppose it Hands off the plain hands off… This battle is taking place at home
in my village which makes me really want to lead it to win it but at the same time makes
me really scared to lose it To have put all my eggs in a basket so close to me that if it explodes it’ll shatter me… Yeah always afraid of suffering So for four years
there’s been leafleting carnivals public meetings parties… and demonstrations We’ve just arrived at Le Nichoir which has been owned by
the town council for 10 years They preempted it to build the project so the road is really going
to pass on top the house And we
the Friends of the Plain collective thought it would be really
horrible if this place were razed to the ground because it has enormous potential Here there are common toads
salamanders and natterjack toads which will favour this type of pond So these are all protected
species whose habitat will be destroyed by the project bearing in mind that just behind us
there are some fairly old oak trees that constitute bat habitats that have been completely minimised by the impact study So the idea here is also to say:
Hello there are protected species here
remember? It’s not just us here on this land there’s a whole bunch of creatures and protected species here too But the local authority persisted and in the early hours of the morning there they were Everything that’s been done here is completely illegal and you know it. You didn’t apply for the authorisations you don’t have a
protected species exemption it’s been shown there are protected species in and around the buildings. You did this because you knew that an appeal had been lodged against the municipality and you went as quickly as possible
to destroy everything so that the bypass could be built anyway. Once everything is dead, of course you can build roads. This is unacceptable. But the damage is done The buildings have been
rendered uninhabitable However
the vegetation hasn’t been razed There’s only one solution: Occupy the property Our small group was soon joined
by people from all over France Wherever the road is planned
they occupy the trees live in their branches and use their bodies to prevent
them from being cut down There’s a ZAD!
There’s a Zone to Defend in my village I can’t believe it ! But the threat remains From the 20th a big machine
will be coming to shred all the vegetation Right We won’t let it through We build watchtowers against humans and take the time to
observe non-humans I’ve become attached to
this place over the last year I’ve climbed these trees and once you get to know
individual living creatures you want to protect them individually and that’s much stronger
than having a very broad opinion on the protection of living things
ecology and nature Emotional affection for
a tiny part of the world so we can have the courage
to be nature defending itself We’re not naïve
we’re the mature ones we’re not dreamers
we’re the ones being serious And we’re not terrorists
we’re the ones striving to ward off fear “We are not afraid of ruins” 40 days of occupying
the trees and the site 40 days of uncertainty of fear of being forced out But in the end… WE WON! So we’ve won a suspension
for species protection so they’re not allowed to start work
again for at least two months but potentially a year and potentially it’ll never even start again It’s at the very least a stage victory and a victory that might become definitive but it’s just so cool
I’m so happy Today we’re celebrating
because it’s a huge victory we’ve been fighting for a month This didn’t just happen we’ve had to defend this place prevent the police from entering prevent the machinery
from entering and clearly if we’d just complied with the law
from start to finish there’d be nothing left
everything would have been razed by now But no nothing has been razed protected species remain protected maybe forever And it’s the alliance
between local residents elected representatives
naturalists environmental protection associations and squatting squirrels
that made this victory possible By working together basically They were here like
“so we can’t start strimming?” “Ah no, I guess we can’t, then” We occupied this place we fought for it Three months later it’s work on the A69
that’s come to a stop In the name of the protected
species on the route the Administrative court has
recalled its environmental permit This is the first time the courts
have halted such a large-scale project One month later it’s Sainte Soline’s turn: four mega-basins are deemed illegal because they threaten
an endangered bird: the little bustard emblem of the dramatic demonstration of the 25th of March 2023 And just as I’m finishing this film I learn that the Farges Bois plant
will not be expanding Under pressure and with court orders from the local tribunal the business gave up on their project Thanks to an unprecedented mobilisation the Limousin forest can
breathe a sigh of relief None of these victories are final Our victories never are But they tell a story I think that the only way out
of this situation in which all living things
are being destroyed is that wherever it takes place the people living there organise
themselves to prevent it For there to be a little resistance here a little resistance there So you have to hang on
to the living things around you As for me I feel connected one of the many attached to the fabric of the world in all its horror and wonder We don’t know what tomorrow will bring but we’ll face it together To live with dignity and face whatever comes It’s never the end of the story but the story being written Join us ! We are the wild defending itself Subtitles :
Benjamin Hollis