It's a new kind of space conquest, involving a prestigious label that rewards the darkest night skies in the world. Since 2018, the Morvan Regional Natural Park has been working to earn its star and become an "International Dark Sky Place" (IDSP). The Burgundy region is hoping to join, as soon as this fall, the exclusive club of places that are the most protected from light pollution.

Some 20 sites around the world have already been recognized for the purity of their skies by the International Dark-Sky Association (IDSA), the American non-profit organization that awards the prize, including four in France: the Pic du Midi de Bigorre Observatory (2013), the Cévennes National Park (2018), the Alpes Azur Mercantour region (2019) and the Millevaches Regional Natural Park in Limousin (2021). Morvan hopes to be next on the list, bearing in mind that in France alone a dozen other candidacies are under consideration.

The 3,220-square-kilometer regional park spreads across the four Burgundy departments (Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire and Yonne) and has a low population density (21 residents per square kilometer). It's far from major cities – Autun and Avallon are the two main urban areas – and its skies are "naturally" of good quality for stargazing.

To have a chance, the applicant had to work hard to renovate, adjust and adapt street lighting. It's a substantial 200-pages project. "The criteria are very demanding," explained Pascal Pommé, mayor of Chissey-en-Morvan (population 283) and in charge of landing the label for the park. "The color temperature (warm or cool), lighting intensity and orientation of lampposts must meet standards drawn up by the IDA." The label also rewards a global approach to protecting the nocturnal environment, and not just a good visibility of the celestial vault.

The first step was to select the area that could be eligible for the label. An IDSP always comprises a central region, the "heart," where darkness is to be preserved as far as possible, and a peripheral zone, the "buffer," where elected officials, individuals and businesses recognize the importance of the starry sky and are committed to protecting it in the long run.

In 2020, a campaign to measure the darkness of the sky was carried out in all the settlements in the park. Some of them, too "polluted" by the halo of Autun and Avallon (13,600 and 6,500 residents respectively), two medium-sized towns, were unable to meet the criteria for certification within a reasonable timeframe. Others, by contrast, were in the heart of the night completely devoid of public or private lighting, and came close to the nighttime quality achieved in the Atacama Desert in Chile, considered to be the darkest spot on earth.

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