By Stephen Le Quesne
LAST week I broke my social media rules and posted something about nature conservation, more specifically Wild Ken Hill. Wild Ken Hill is a rewilding site in the UK. It combines rewilding, conservation, and sustainable farming in a 4,000-acre site that is essentially a coastal farm.
The post was focused on the minotaur beetle, a species of dung beetle native to the UK. Within Wild Ken Hill these unique beetles take advantage of the dung of horses, cattle, deer and rabbits within the sandy heathland. Dung beetles are fascinating creatures that fulfil an important task in that they recycle nutrients back into the soil by processing and using the dung of other animals.
Dung beetles are probably best known from David Attenborough documentaries, with clips of them either in the desert or scrub regions of Southern Africa, but in the UK we have around 60 species, split into three taxonomic groups.
The post by Wild Ken Hill caught my attention as it made me think about Jersey and how we have the same type of sandy habitat and yet we are not able to share anything similar, something positive. I did think, do we have these beetles in Jersey? If not, then why not? And if we do, how would we know? Species monitoring in the Island is limited.
What I was not expecting from this shared post was the heated discussion it created from two environmental professionals, which quickly turned into an honest insight to the status of conservation in Jersey, its limitations and how it can be seen to be hanging by a thread in its current state, or maybe “on life support” is the best description?
The last Environment Minister that I remember who worked a whole term and truly fought for nature, was the late, great Nigel Quérée. He was knowledgeable, insightful, and clear in his aims and views. He was a great asset and is sorely missed. Since his term and the introduction of ministerial government in 2005, Jersey’s natural environment has slowly taken a back seat, which becomes more and more obvious if you look at the wider picture of nature conservation in the UK and beyond.
I do not think this is the fault of our current or previous Environment Ministers really, and it is too easy to criticise just one individual (and it accomplishes nothing). Environment as a portfolio needs to be taken away from Housing and Infrastructure, as it seems to take back seat to the other two government portfolios.
There is also a strong argument to add farming as a key priority and therefore create an Environment and Farming Department (other names are available), with a Minister for Farming. Farming dominates our countryside and yet we have no minister responsible for this industry. This seems like a large oversight.
The other main issue affecting nature conservation in Jersey is the fact that there is not enough capital and finances available for what is needed, which means volunteers are heavily relied on to do much of the heavy lifting, especially when it comes to species monitoring.
Presently, the government has its primary monitoring schemes focused on butterflies, reptiles, amphibians and bats, which means monitoring ponds, reptile habitats and bat roosts. The butterfly scheme is incredibly important and is part of the UK wide Butterfly Conservation Scheme, one of the world’s longest-running insect-monitoring schemes.
These schemes rely heavily on volunteers to collect the data, especially with butterflies as it involves walking a transect once a week (I currently walk the Howard Davis Park transect).
If you add to this the numerous volunteer tree-planting schemes and volunteer conservation tasks, then it is acceptable to say that we have an over-reliance on volunteers (and the charity sector) when trying to monitor and protect the natural environment in Jersey. This over reliance on volunteer hours then gives the impression that the environment is a nice to have, but not essential as there is a lack of investment, as we seem to be getting by with the volunteer hours that are done. Then as there is no adequate investment within nature conservation, it is only volunteers and charities that can dedicate the time to this critical function. A feedback cycle is therefore created.
So as Wild Ken Hill are raving about their dung beetles, the Knepp Estate in Sussex continues to thrive with their White Stork Project and the National Trust in the UK is creating its largest-ever wildflower grassland, we are left sitting on our hands and probably losing conservation professionals who see no future in the profession here.
I do not think it is anyone’s fault and nobody is to blame, but it is time to discuss a different way. This is no criticism on the many individuals who dedicate their time, energy and careers into the protection and monitoring of our local wildlife, but I do feel that our local amateur and professional conservationists would benefit from a change the most.
Stephen Le Quesne is a naturalist, conservationist, forest school leader and nature connection advocate.
