Promoting Jersey’s SSIs and ‘the promise that they hold’

Promoting Jersey’s SSIs and ‘the promise that they hold’

Jersey has 19 Sites of Special Interest which cover a total of four per cent of the Island, taking in woodlands, heath and wetland, wild open stretches of the coast and duneland.

They include Les Blanches Banques, Ouaisné Common, St Ouen’s Pond, Grouville Marsh and the ancient walls of Mont Orgueil Castle, all of which provide a home for rare species of animals and plants.

A new monthly series of articles is being written for the JEP by Tim Liddiard, senior natural environment officer at the Environment Department, who, after starting his working life with Durrell on conservation projects overseas, returned home 19 years ago to work as a countryside ranger.

‘I want to use this as an opportunity to make people more aware of our SSIs, their accessibility and the promise that they hold,’ he said.

‘They contain wonderful areas of wildlife and miles of beautiful walking routes, so I want to try to encourage people to get out and visit these places.’

The Island’s first SSIs were designated in 1996. The best known and most used are Les Blanches Banques, the sand dunes in the hinterland of St Ouen’s Bay, and Les Landes, the expanse of exposed and windswept heathland that stretches from L’Etacq to Plémont.

Mr Liddiard will also be focusing on out-of-the-way SSIs such as Le Petit Pré – secluded woodland in Trinity – and Rue des Prés, a wetland on the edge of the trading estate in Longueville, St Saviour which is the last
example of the low-lying marsh that was once widespread in the surrounding area.

‘SSI designation is a key method by which the Island meets its obligations at international, national and local level to conserve its special species, habitats and ecosystems,’ Mr Liddiard added.

‘Jersey is a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, a multilateral treaty with nearly 200 member parties with the goal of improving global sustainability.

‘The wildlife found in Jersey is special, as is often the case with many islands.

‘In our situation, animals and plants are largely comparable to those found in the UK, but are also very similar to the French Atlantic coast.

‘As a result, the Island provides a home for species at both the southern and northern limit of their range and, as a consequence, Jersey’s biological lists differ somewhat from SSIs in the UK.’

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