Aromatic and medicinal plants - Tisane du Volcan

À Saint-Joseph, on the island of La Réunion, Nicolas grows medicinal plants and produces local herbal teas that respect biodiversity - a true commitment to sustainable agriculture.

"We make herbal teas and endemic medicinal plants, registered with the French cooperative farm. Today, we market eight of them, the ones we have in sufficient quantity here. It's not really production: we don't plant the trees, they plant themselves naturally or are already present.

Our aim is to try and grow crops in a forest environment. We're doing agroecology in the forest. We're thinking about how we can make a decent living in these areas while preserving the forest above us, the forest on the crest, which is in the heart of the National Park. When we settled down, we chose farming because there were a number of reasons that brought us back to nature. The natural, independent side appealed to us, as did the self-reliant side. That's why we're looking for solutions to try as far as possible to create a local economy and be able to make a living from it, while still being linked to this place. It's not easy every day, but we try to find solutions.

National park spirit? It's an approach that tends towards forest preservation, the fight against invasive exotic species, the development of activities in harmony with the environment, and so on. And that's exactly what we're doing!