Overview

• The trial began July 4 at the Marseille criminal court against a real estate developer and the Ecotonia consultancy for destroying an Athene noctua nesting site.
• Prosecutor Michel Sastre asked for fines totaling up to €30,000 and noted the developer could face three years in prison and a €150,000 penalty.
• Defendants are accused of demolishing a 2023 Château-Gombert bastide without the required ecological derogation that housed a pair of strictly protected owls.
• Ecotonia SARL faces complicity charges for omitting the owl nest from its ecological impact report, a claim the consultancy denies.
• Complaints from France Nature Environnement, the Ligue de Protection des Oiseaux and Asdas followed a regional decline of Athene noctua pairs from about sixty to twenty.