The passing of Francis Hallé – a giant of the forests
On 31st December the botanical world lost one of its greatest champions.
Professor Francis Hallé, 1936 – 2026, dedicated his life to the tree, its architecture and ecology. Travelling, teaching and publishing widely throughout the tropics during his long career, he focussed on the diminishing great forests of South America, the Far East and Africa. Stressing their vital role in maintaining climatic equilibrium and the biodiverse basis for human wellbeing.
In his later years he came to realise the importance for the world of Europe creating its own “grande forêt primaire” – and a vision was born.
Starting his career during the 1960s in Central Africa, Francis held the role of Professor of Botany at Montpellier University for nearly 30 years until 1999, though continuing to range far afield in his work. He rapidly came to see and promote forests as integral entities, with their trees as sentient individuals, interacting in a phenomenally complicated web of life. In order to better comprehend this, he pioneered the canopy raft, discovering a new world in the tree tops, hitherto almost entirely unstudied.
With his nascent roots in Europe, Francis realised the importance to his own long-developed, overcrowded continent of enabling the existence of a great primary forest. Nothing of course remotely on the scale of the Amazon or Congo Basin, but very large – at least 70,000 hectares – and growing, developing, evolving free of interference from human management or extractive impact. Big enough to look towards its own ecological integrity, its interlocking habitats, food webs, even micro climate. Big enough for Europe to argue with credibility the need and value of strictest protection for remaining natural forests across the planet.
No forest, most of all in its primary state, is born overnight. And Francis Hallé’s vision will span centuries. In 2019 he established the Francis Halle Association for Primary Forests and set about championing his vision. In 2022 Frans Timmermans, then Vice President of the European Union, acclaimed the project as “an inter-generational pact of nature restoration”.
Francis Hallé may no longer be with us, but his legacy lives on as a powerful incentive for those who seek to implement his vision. Work to identify and promote potential locations is underway, with focus currently on two alternative trans-frontier locations: in the Franco-Belgian Ardennes and the North Vosges-Rhineland Palatinate region.