Discovery trails

POIA

The area around the tail of the Serre-Ponçon reservoir boasts an exceptional wealth of flora and fauna, including unique heritage species never before identified in the Hautes-Alpes department. The only area of ecological interest on the Serre-Ponçon artificial lake, this remarkable site was classified as a sensitive natural area by the Hautes-Alpes department in 2015.

In spite of this, the wetland, which has been allowed to fall into disuse, is now suffering from a total lack of management, and is therefore under threat.

With this in mind, the Liou wetland is in need of an enhancement project to bring together all the players involved (EDF, local communities, the Département, Parc National des Ecrins, the fishing federation, etc.) and highlight the site's natural heritage and interest, with a view to encouraging local residents and tourists to take ownership of the area, so as to better protect and manage it. The enhancement project thus consists of creating an "ecotourism" product by highlighting the heritage associated with wetlands, with the following objectives:

• Rehabilitating the Liou site, enabling the population of the Embrun area to reappropriate it, the project being integrated into the numerous "greenway" type facilities available to the Serre-Ponçon community;

• Enhancing the natural heritage through the creation of stilted paths, observation posts, explanatory panels and interactive tools;

• Raising public awareness of the role and functionality of wetlands, and the interest and fragility of these specific, highly localized environments

SMADESEP has joined forces with partners and managers of Alpine lakes to set up a project for the development and enhancement of tourism in Alpine lakes, co-financed by the European Union as part of the Interregional Operational Program for the Alps (POIA), to enable the development and management of this exceptional heritage area for the Serre-Ponçon reservoir.