World Wetlands Day lives up to its name
AN EVENT to mark World Wetlands Day lived up to its name yesterday afternoon as wind and rain swept across the island.
To mark WWD, which takes place annually on 2 February, four bodies – Agriculture Countryside and Land Management Services, the Clean Earth Trust, La Societe Guernesiaise, and the Lihou Charitable Trust – arranged activities on Lihou Island to highlight the importance of such areas.
WWD marks the anniversary of the adoption of the 1971 Convention on Wetlands in Ramsar, Iran. In 2006 a wetland area at L’Eree, which included La Claire Mare and the Colin Best Nature Reserve, was designated as the 166th Ramsar site in the British Isles.
While a planned La Societe crab survey fell victim to the weather, a Clean Earth Trust beach clean went ahead.
Dog walker Hannah Smith, and Donna Kelly, who works for Sure, were among the hardy souls who took part.
‘We enjoy going on the beaches and seeing if we can find any treasure,’ said Miss Smith.
‘We’ll probably do more beach cleans in the coming months once the weather has picked up.’
Fishing lines and floats seemed to be the biggest rubbish problem on the shoreline, she said.
Sarah Edmunds, who works for Butterfield, was walking the causeway with children, Millie, 8, and Tommy, 3.
‘We’re a very environmentally-friendly family and we want to help preserve Guernsey,’ she said.
‘If we can pick up some of the rubbish while being outdoors at the same time then it’s great.’
Cigarettes, food wrappers and coffee cups were a big problem when it came to litter on the beaches, she said.
Trust manager Louise McCathie and her family were also supporting the initiative.
‘I think it’s good to get the children involved with environmental causes early on,’ she said. ‘We would have done the crab survey had it gone ahead today.’ Plastic bottles and cans were a problem on the beaches, she said.
