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Reserve Reserve: The "Bing Marcasse" Presentation

The reserve and its biodiversity


area into a nature reserve on the slag heap of Marcasse covers a large part of this heap. The reserve area covers an area of 8.85 hectares.
Marcasse The industrial site was closed in 1958. Since that time, the tip is free of development and activity. He suffered a natural afforestation.

The soil is composed, like all the tips, by waste slate. This heap has not entered into combustion.
The characteristics of this type of site are many: poor soil and gravel absorbing much of the sunlight, slopes and amplitudes often mobile, multiple exposures, site recently devoid of any vegetation, lack of management and planning, presence of areas much earlier than the rest of the heap ...
All these characteristics, and many others, creates a great diversity of habitats over a limited area.

The diversity of plant zonation on the heap of Marcasse is very important. It's going to find ancient woodlands, wooded areas far more recent areas of slopes with a mobile facies unstable areas of dense birch, birch clear zones, open areas in the open lawn, a wetland. ..

This multitude of environments enables the implementation of a remarkable procession of flora and fauna for Borinage. Among the
fauna, there are many forest birds (tawny owl, the long-eared owl, various peaks, etc..), different grasshoppers whose blue-winged grasshopper, several mammals (foxes, deer, rodents, various, etc..), etc. .
Among the flora are: the Cotton dwarf the Sablin leaved thyme, fireweed to lanceolate, the Inula Conyza, the Thrincie the Carline vulgaris, Nodding thistle, etc..
However, although the diversity of ecosystems is still important now, what knows a heap consequent natural afforestation. Without intervention, the overall facies Bing tends towards a wooded area currently widespread, which would lose its rich biological diversity by standardizing natural habitats.

management conducted by the Board of Management Terrils Borinage is thus mainly to conserve the biodiversity of the heap maintaining ecosystems present on the heap and developing those with the greatest wealth.
The actions can be summarized in:

Ø Maintaining the open nature of some areas (birch clear ...)
Ø Maintenance and expansion of open areas (grasslands) present on the slopes,
Ø Transformation Summit in a large open area with a lawn uppermost facies,
Ø Expansion and maintenance of the wetland at the bottom of this heap,
Ø Fight against invasive species: Cherry, Cape groundsel, knotweed Japan ...