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56 - The Vercors: The Grand Veymont Crest

 Geography
The highest Urgonian rock step in the Vercors stretches from Grande Moucherolle (2284m/7493ft) to Grand Veymont (2341m/7680 ft). It abuts abruptly against the western flank of a large perched syncline, an area of mountain meadows and sparse Swiss pine woodlands.
Farther to the south, karst features are well developed on (and within) the Veymont Plateau, exhibiting numerous sinkholes, caves and scialets (local name for aven), with a surface marked by beautiful clints and grikes, a veritable Alpine garden.
The entire area is free of development and more or less corresponds to the Réserve naturelle des Hauts Plateaux du Vercors, while the southern half is part of a temporary military area.
 Landscape
At the southern extremity of the Lans Valley, Corrençon-en-Vercors is located in a basin pan surrounded by a forest.
The commune is particularly representative of various aspects of the Vercors landscape. The particularly inspiring landscape of the towering Urgonian summits of the Petite and Grande Moucherolle to the east, along with the omnipresent forests, goes hand in hand with the advantages of the high elevation and the tourist and sports resources at the entryway to the Hauts-Plateaux of the Réserve Naturelle. There is, in addition, the presence of the challenge presented by a high location and the search for new inspiration that joins job creation with a stated determination to protect the landscape.
The abandonment of farming coincided, from the 1960s onwards, with rapid growth in downhill skiing, accompanied by the construction of a road that led to the Clot-de-la-Balme resort, and by much other construction, which for the most part consisted initially of single family homes built without any overall urban planning and on a variety of architectural models. The result is "a higgledy-piggledy mess", according to an expert who lives in the village (A.Sgard).
There was an initial stage in the 1980s marked by the development of a multi-year tourist development programin association with Villard, which was aimed at merging their ski areas, consolidating their tourism offices and creating a golf course that was conceived explicitly as an activity to reclaim the landscape of an area abandoned by farming. Today the commune "explicitly gives top priority to ‘landscape management';; this is expressed concretely by specific actions concerning buildings and farming space, the strict regulation of architecture, fences and bill-boarding, the maintenance of land on the edge of the village invaded by undergrowth, and working with young farmers to plan how to maintain their farms" (A.Sgard).
The example of Corrençon-en-Vercors is representative of the turning point in which many communes in the Isère mountains find themselves, as they confront the dual concerns of growth and managing their landscape image. In this situation, there is universal agreement on the need for measures to restore and protect key landscape features such as the open continuities of the meadow clearings. A second element worth mentioning is intercommunal coordination, associations and planning . These are essential for helping landscape solidarity between areas in a situation of co-visibility make the transition from simple observation to concrete action programs to protect and promote the landscape.

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