Specialists in tough felling work: SENNEBOGEN material handlers at work at Canal du Midi

The Canal du Midi is more than 240 km long and connects Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea near Sète. Completed in 1681, it was a critical transport route for years, opening up regional markets to interregional trade long before modern streets and transportation routes came to France. Today the canal, which was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996, is a beloved vacation destination and is primarily used by pleasure craft and houseboats. However, this idyll is being threatened. The some 42,000 plane trees lining the Canal du Midi have been stricken by a disease. A microbial fungus is infesting the trees. Branches and bark begin falling off, and the tree is dead in two to five years.

The only solution for curtailing the disease is to chop down and burn the affected trees. Specialized companies spend the winter clearing out a number of targeted locations. This is where the two SENNEBOGEN material handlers delivered at the start of 2015 by Sales and Service Partner SYGMAT come into play.