The High Environmental Quality approach

Inclusion

Terre Blanche, in order to preserve the beauty of the landscapes perceptible from the villages of the Haut-Var, has set up strict specifications before any work is carried out, applicable to itself or to the co-owners.
Thus, the landscaping provisions designed to maintain the existing plant cover include the implementation of compensatory measures.

WOODED BANDS
AROUND BUILT-UP AREAS

  • Homogeneous
  • Preserved
  • Densified

HEDGED LANDSCAPE
PRESERVED

  • Suitable for high biological diversity
  • Beneficial to bird exchanges with nearby lakes and forests
    Terre Blanche

Integration

Terre Blanche is like the hillside villages of the Haut Var, a haven of peace and tranquillity.
Terre Blanche Hotel offers suites and villas scattered in the woods in the heart of lush natural areas with exceptional views.

The views of Terre Blanche from the villages of the Haut Var have also been designed to maintain a natural hillside view with buildings perfectly integrated into the vegetation.

OBJECTIVE:
TO REDUCE...

  • ...visual impacts
  • ...waterproofed surfaces
  • ...the destruction of the natural environment

Since its creation, the Resort has focused on the use of basements for all technical rooms, car parks, filtration rooms, technical galleries, etc. and any equipment for which daylight is not necessary

PRESERVING NATURE
AT ALL COSTS

  • Stormwater collection networks
  • Oil separators
  • Catchment basins to regulate the volumes discharged into the natural environment

Prevention

Terre Blanche, like all natural vegetation, was exposed to the risk of fire during the construction phase and until the final technical and human resources were in place, which could destroy the site for decades.

A fire brigade was set up with self-propelled means to fight any outbreak of fire, whether natural or man-made.
Terre Blanche is exposed to the risk of flooding, due to stormy rainfall capable of ruining the golf courses, or even damaging the infrastructures, but also due to the overflowing of the Riou Blanc which crosses Terre Blanche and exposes the neighbouring golf courses to erosion and ruin of the fairways in ten-year or one hundred-year floods.
The infrastructures for collecting run-off water have been calibrated to respond to the instantaneous inflow from the roads (waterproofing, therefore no infiltration) with the creation of numerous skimming basins scattered in the areas requiring regulation of the volumes of water released into the environment.
The gullies, which are ornamental structures, also have a function of collecting run-off water and, as such, are built of reinforced concrete and erosion-resistant waterproofing.
These gullies also have, through their successive reaches, an energy dissipating role to reduce the speed of water flow.
The Riou Blanc is maintained, in the sector where Terre Blanche has full ownership on a half bank or on both banks, by removing materials and plants that could reduce the bed used for runoff.
The perimeter fences, particularly at the level of fairways 1 and 2 of the Riou, are designed to be folded down so as not to obstruct the flow of water from the Riou Blanc when it leaves its bed during a ten-year flood.
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Compensatory measures

Any human intervention in the natural environment has an impact on biodiversity, even without seeing the immediate effects.

Walking can destroy plant cover and micro-organisms and thus contribute to the destabilisation of sensitive and fragile natural environments. For example, it took a few decades to understand the secondary effects of the disappearance of plants in the dunes, whose fixing power, once gone, led to irreversible spectacular erosion, with all the consequences for human activities.

Native species are preferred to maintain biological diversity and natural habitats.

MAINTAINING
THE ECOLOGICAL BALANCE

The Cahier des Charges de Cession des Terrains, which was drawn up from the outset and appended to all sales contracts, imposes numerous compensatory measures to be implemented to maintain an ecological balance. For example, for every tree felled for construction purposes, the planting of a tree, or even two depending on the case, is imposed.

DEFINITION OF NATURAL AREAS TO BE PRESERVED

A landscape section also defines the natural areas to be preserved, as well as numerous modalities such as the management of watering and runoff, etc...

PREFERRED NATIVE SPECIES

Native species are preferred to maintain biological diversity and natural habitats.

Environmental monitoring
1. construction phase (2000-2008)

As soon as the ground was broken, provisions for the protection and monitoring of environmental impacts (construction and operation) were put in place when Terre Blanche was created.

Under the direction of the prefectural services (Water Police, Departmental Directorate of Agriculture and Forestry, etc.), independent consultancies were entrusted with the task of monitoring and controlling the obligations arising from the rights to build obtained.

MISSION IMPACT FAUNA & FLORA

The progress reports of the engineering office commissioned by the Prefecture confirm this.
In 2002, during the construction phase: 

"The clean site management applied, accompanied by strong daily logistics, does not generate devastating and irreversible side effects too often seen in large-scale construction sites."

In 2008, four years after the completion of the main development works: "Our first approach to the environment and birdlife of Terre Blanche shows that the golf and housing structures have been harmoniously integrated into the natural landscape of the area.
We were particularly surprised by the quality of the work in progress, which scrupulously respects the wooded areas while preserving a bocage landscape conducive to life.

This landscape structure tends to blend the houses into the forest environment and gives the whole of the housing estate a natural and intimate aspect that is unusual and very beautiful.

Although this will need to be confirmed later in the season, it does not appear that the bird community has been significantly impacted by the development of the resort.


HYDROLOGICAL IMPACT MISSION

Terre Blanche has appointed a hydrogeologist to be in charge of the design and hydrological monitoring of the Resort from the outset.

The hydrogeologist also has the task of

- The hydrogeologist's mission is also to assist the architects in the design of the structures and to help them define the constructional provisions in line with the existing structures. A hydrological note, appended to all building permit applications, validates the measures taken to collect and control run-off water.

- in execution control, the verification of the correct execution of the works.


Environmental monitoring
2. Operation phase

GOLF COURSES
FLORA CONVERSION

  • Conversion of flora started in 2019
  • New water-saving grass
  • Réduction des produits phytosanitaires
  • Wildlife audit and monitoring mission
  • GEO and Silver Label golf course (Golf for Biodiversity Programme)
  • Installation of information panels on environmental actions

RESERVOIR LAKES
IRRIGATION WATER

Terre Blanche has hired a consultancy firm to manage hydraulic equipment with the aim of maintaining and deploying a storage lake in the delicate conditions of a storage lake (management of tides, temperature, oxygenation and proliferation of microscopic algae).

The woods

The natural areas around the fairways are left uncultivated to allow a natural evolution of the fauna and flora with the creation of habitats favourable to their development (storage, wood, selective mowing once a year, etc.)

3100 Route de Bagnols-en-Forêt
83440 Tourrettes | Var | Provence Côte d'Azur
+33 (0)4 94 39 90 00
reservations.tbhotel@terre-blanche.com

Terre Blanche

Hotel Resort

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