Gabriel-Louis-Prosper Demontzey
January 15 2025Gabriel Louis Prosper Demontzey (born in 1831 in Saint-Dié – died in 1898 in Aix-en-Provence) was a French water and forestry engineer, graduating from the École forestière de Nancy in 1852. He was a general ranger and then an inspector in Algeria from 1853 to 1861, and cut his teeth in reforestation by organizing the construction of roads and Aleppo pine plantations.
Appointed in 1862 as Head of the Reforestation Commission in the Alpes Maritimes, he was called upon to head the reforestation service of the Alpes de Haute Province following a series of floods that took place at the end of the 1850s. He implemented ingenious reforestation and grassing techniques in the mountains for the time: while reforesting (by planting, mainly black pines), he and his teams set about building dams that would form a staircase, thus replacing the original, steeper slope. The objective was to “correct” the natural movement of the torrent and thus avoid further flooding. In 1877, he became curator in Aix-en-Provence, and extended his field of action to all the departments of the Southern Alps, coordinating other works on major destructive torrents.
En 1882, Prosper Demontzey devient inspecteur général et supervise des travaux de restauration dans toute la France, sa renommée attirant même des spécialistes étrangers de pays voisins. Avant sa retraite en 1893, il publie des ouvrages techniques sur le reboisement, traduits dans plusieurs langues et références dans le domaine.
Main publications
- Étude sur les travaux de reboisement et de gazonnement des montagnes, Paris, 1878.- 421 p.
- Traité pratique sur le reboisement des montagnes, Paris, 1881, 528 p.
- L’extinction des torrents en France par le reboisement, Paris, 1894.- 463 p.