‘Record-breaking’ effort to clear sour fig at Portinfer
FILLING SKIPS with sour fig was sweet fulfilment for an army of volunteers over the weekend.
The Guernsey Conservation Volunteers were clearing Portinfer common on Saturday of the non-native species which is smothering other plants and wildlife.
They started at 10am on Saturday and within an hour they had already filled three skips, with two more skips to go.
About 50 people turned up to pull out the fig, and Angela Salmon, the group co-ordinator for GCV, was impressed with the commitment.
‘This is the most we’ve ever had, this is a record-breaking fig pull,’ she said. ‘We’ve got people from the community, people from Resolution IT, and people from the Guernsey Conservation Volunteers.’
Sour fig comes from South Africa and was accidentally introduced to Guernsey when it was brought over as a garden plant and then spread.
It is one of the most harmful invasive plant species because of its ability to kill native plants and destroy habitats.
Undeterred by its powers, the volunteers were getting stuck in and eliminating it from an area at Portinfer.
Mrs Salmon said the clearance would allow local species to reclaim lost territory.
‘We are pulling it up here so that the native plants can grow back. We don’t need to plant anything because the seeds are already in the ground, it’s just giving the native seeds the chance to grow.
‘Sour fig is really, really invasive. It’s knocked back by cold winters, but we rarely get those these days, the last cold winter that killed patches of it off was the Beast from the East in 2018.
‘It spreads and spreads and smothers all the native plants, so it’s not good for insects, there are hardly any insects that live on it. We want the biodiversity to come back and feed the insects and birds.’
