Hiking trail: Saint-Martin-du-Puy loop

The identity of the Morvan landscape is linked to the hedged farmland that still marks the boundaries of many small plots of land. A variety of fencing techniques are used: low hedges, high pleated hedges, dry stone walls and barbed wire. After centuries of mixed farming (rye, wheat, oats, buckwheat, barley, etc.) supplemented by a small amount of livestock farming, after 1960 Morvan agriculture specialised in breeding Charolais cattle (young animals sold for breeding or fattening). Today, the bocage is regressing, but it is necessary to safeguard this fragile landscape both from an agricultural point of view (protecting cattle from the vagaries of the weather) and from an environmental point of view. The bocage is a rich environment. In addition to the thirty or so shrub species found in the hedgerows, it is home to a number of heritage plant and animal species, including the chokecherry, the whorled Solomon's seal, the shrike, the little owl, the spotted woodpecker, the sparrowhawk, the two-tailed shrew and the little bat, etc.