Jonathan Kemp; A naturalist in the south of France

  Sitting to the west of the geographical centre of France is an area known as the ‘Land of a thousand Lakes’, a nature reserve three hours’ drive south-west of Paris,  It is an unusual place, a kaleidoscope of rich farmland – maize, sunflower, some cattle pasture – and mature stands of deciduous trees, seemingly with a lake behind every hedge. A flat land, with no hills or rivers to bend the roads, very different to the department of the Aude where I live with its’ mountains and hills. The lakes and pools are all artificial, created by man over the centuries wanting to stock and harvest fish. This explains why the only two main rivers of the region, flowing to the west, pass to the north and south of the honeycombs of lagoons, and do not feed into this maize of water filled lands. The lakes themselves are only connected by small streams, often controlled by sluices; clearly a very carefully controlled area of land. It is an area where the ingenuity and industriousness...