‘Lip service being paid to biodiversity’
THE island’s three largest environmental organisations have raised concerns that only lip service is being paid to Guernsey’s Strategy for Nature.
The biodiversity strategy aims to drive the long-term management of nature in Guernsey, but La Societe, the National Trust of Guernsey and the Nature Commission are concerned it is not being treated seriously enough.
It follows recent comments from Development & Planning Authority president Victoria Oliver that the strategy was working well.
‘Basically any development that comes forward now has to have a net biodiversity gain, so even though you’re seeing buildings go up, there still can be great biodiversity within those housing sites,’ she said at a recent Q&A.
‘If anything is negative, it won’t get through the planning process, so biodiversity should not be a problem within the housing sites.’
In a strongly-worded letter, signed by the heads of the three environmental organisations, they used the example of a recent planning application at Fairfield in Rue des Barras in the Vale, where they said net gain was not being delivered.
The application is for a clos of 10 houses on what was a domestic garden and had historically been used for glasshouses.
The three organisations have asked if an environmental assessment had been conducted and if this had been done by a qualified ecologist, who had agreed there would be a net biodiversity gain.
They also asked the DPA if data on the site’s fauna and flora could be viewed, as in the application it was just called ‘vegetation’.
They also questioned who would manage areas mentioned in the biodiversity report, such as a suggested pond and a potential swale or marshy area.
‘Wildflower areas are proposed for three gardens, the success and retention will be in the hands of the property owners and will soon likely disappear through lack of maintenance, under sheds and other garden paraphernalia,’ they wrote.
‘Can the DPA and developers guarantee the maintenance and success of these small areas?
‘Applications are often accompanied by the same inaccurate information that has been copied and pasted,’ they wrote.
‘Sometimes appearing in many applications, this information often refers to species that have never been recorded in Guernsey.’
