L’Herbier du Diois is situated at the entry of the village of Châtillon-en-Diois.
The village of Châtillon-en-Diois
L’Herbier du Diois is located at the entrance to the village of Châtillon-en-Diois, 12 km southeast of Die, in the Drôme. This rural commune, camped at the foot of the Vercors between Glandasse and the Piémard mountain, is home to 666 inhabitants. The narrow streets, typical houses and ramparts make this medieval village a place of preserved architectural heritage. In 2021, it received the “Most beautiful village in France” label. The commune includes a large area of forests and mountains, conducive to maintaining a rich and varied biodiversity. Some of our fields border the company and allow us to observe nature unfolding. We take care to preserve hedges, plant trees regularly and take care of our botanical garden which is now home to more than 200 species. We have built a partnership with the LPO (League for the Protection of Birds) and created the “Refuge Herbier du Diois” on our site. We are therefore committed to welcoming ever more plant and animal species around us, promoting our natural heritage and using it as a tool to raise public awareness of nature.
The Diois
The Diois is a region found at the crossroads between the Alpes Mountains and Provence, surrounded by many fields which offers an exceptional biological diversity and a climate that is a perfect compromise between the rigorous climate of the nearby mountains and the dry mildness of the Mediterranean. We alternate from the vast fields of Spring primroses to the dazzling colors of the Summer lavender to the ocean of Fall colors radiance to end the year with our snow-capped Winter mountain tops. Eternal amidst the seasons, our beloved mountain called the Glandasse, who proudly overlooks all the valley from its 2041 meters high perspective !
The Biovalée® project®
The Diois is at the heart of the Biovalée (organic valley) project, which contributes to making the Drôme a national and even European reference in terms of sustainable development material. Launched by the villages in Val de Drôme and Diois in the 1980’s, Biovalée has since carried out several projects that support environmental protection. The association encourages the various actors to continuously progress, and has the objective of attaining 50% organic farmers and farms in 2020, to propose 80% local or organic produce in the collective restaurants by 2025, to cover the entirety of energy consumption in the region with local renewable energy by 2040, and that all urban planning documents promise to no longer destroy agricultural land for urbanization.
The Drôme : Pioneer region of organic agriculture in France
Since the 1970s, many actors (producers, consumers, businesses, local cooperatives) have brought a vision of the organic world to the region. The Drôme has become a reference in terms of the development of organic crops. Today it has 1,267 farms labeled organic farming, or nearly a third of the usable agricultural area. More than 13% of this land is intended for the cultivation of aromatic and medicinal perfume plants (PPAM). In the commune of Châtillon-en-Diois, more than 60% of the land is under organic cultivation.