Charter 2025 – 2040: everything you need to know about our territorial project! 

At the Montagne de Reims Regional Natural Park, the Charter is both our raison d'être and our compass... Don't you see what it corresponds to precisely? That’s good: here, we answer 4 of your main questions. Good discovery !

1. A Park, how does it work?

The “Regional Natural Park” label is awarded to a territory considered exceptional, because of the richness of its biodiversity, its landscapes and its culture. Fragile, it also needs to be protected and valued. However, a Regional Nature Park is neither an enclosed space nor a sanctuary for wild species! On the contrary, it is inhabited, it lives, and provides life: this is why it needs to develop in a sustainable way...

For renew this precious label, which is only valid for 15 years, only one solution: build a new, sustainable territorial project, called Charter. In other words, without the Charter, the Parc de la Montagne de Reims would no longer exist! Our territory could then be left to the interventions of different occupants and developers, without a search for coherence, without a lucid vision of the fragility of the site, without regard for the long-term preservation of its natural environments and its identity... A truly undesirable situation. , is not it ?

2. What is a Charter?

If you now know why the Park has a Charter, what does it consist of precisely? 

The Charter is a written contract which formalizes the project for the protection and development of its territory. We find there:

• The objectives to be achieved;
• The orientations of preservation, valorization and development;
• Concrete measures for implementing these guidelines. For example: thematic trails to introduce visitors to the riches of heritage, innovative development programs for greener and more open public spaces, or even municipalities that reduce night lighting to give wildlife back its place. nocturnal.

It is therefore a real territorial project, which is long-term. And of course, each Park has its own Charter!

At the Parc de la Montagne de Reims, its development involves the State, the Great East Region, Marne Departmental Council and all member municipalities and intermunicipalities. And that's not all: residents, visitors and voluntary users are also all welcome to help draw its contours. The Charter is everyone’s business ! Besides, let’s see more precisely how its writing takes place…

3. The revision of the Charter, kesako?

Since the label of a Regional Natural Park is only valid for 15 years, the Charter of the latter must be subject to review at this same deadline. A golden opportunity to draft a brand new territory project, taking into account the evolution of the territory's challenges!

It is the region which is driving the revision of the Charter. This procedure then follows 3 main steps :

1. The evaluation of past actions thanks to a assessment and diagnosis.
2. The construction of the future project, thanks to broad consultation with local elected officials, local stakeholders, partners and the general public: at the Park, we like to compare points of view! All together, we start by examining the main challenges ahead: what will our territory look like in 15 years? Will the climate have warmed up? What jobs will future generations do? Then, we set the objectives to be achieved, and we translate them into concrete actions. 
3. Project validation, which allows for the renewal of the classification for 15 years. To do this, the Charter is signed by municipalities, groups of municipalities, departments and regions: in this way, everyone undertakes to respect their commitments. Then, after a series of consultations carried out at local and national level, the Charter is approved by decree, by the Prime Minister himself! 

The revision of the Charter therefore represents a major moment of reflection and exchange, where all stakeholders in the territory are invited to participate in collective meetings and respond to a public inquiry. But it is also a long work, which extends over 4 years. Yes, 4 years is the time it takes for, in the 15 years of implementation of the Charter, another life to be invented in Montagne de Reims!

4. And what about the current Charter? 

The current Charter of the Montagne de Reims Regional Natural Park is valid until 2024. On this date, the brand new 2025 – 2040 Charter will take over! The fruit of long-term work, initiated in 2020…

To find out more, do not hesitate to download the documents below:

• The Charter 2009 – 2025
• The 2025-2040 Park plan
• Summary of the Charter 2025 – 2040
• Preliminary studies (balance sheet et diagnostic) 2025 - 2040 
• The results of the 2025 – 2040 consultation 
• The landscape notebook

See you soon (or almost) to develop our next Charter together!