It’s true in both senses. It’s the only part of our Island that’s managed to survive the industrialisation of our society relatively unchanged and we’re also about to lose it. It’s an ironic situation when you peer beneath the veneer of a landscape we’ve all come to know and love. Across the UK and EU we’ve lost somewhere in the region of 85% of our heathland in the last 150 years.
It’s a landscape ‘out of time’. 125,000 years ago Jersey’s very own Dwarf Deer would have grazed those same majestic sweeping slopes, a mosaic habitat that included an incredible range of wild grasses and flowers, patches of native scrub and woodland. Wild predators would have stalked the deer and balance, however brutal, persisted for millenia.
A long time later, our ancestors became entwined with this special part of our natural world and would eventually come to call this place their home. On these very same slopes our forebears first hunted and then farmed. Slowly the landscape and its people evolved simultaneously and symbiotically. This interdependency went uninterrupted right through until recent recorded history, when Islanders would rely on these wild spaces for essentials such as bedding (bracken) and firewood (gorse) alongside providing a place to raise the animals that would provide our ancestors with a sustainable source of high quality protein and warm clothes. Always in balance.
Eventually and abruptly, after tens of thousands of years, this magnificent landscape was abandoned. It simply couldn’t be intensified or ‘improved’ in the way our flat and deep nutrient rich inland soils could. Because of this, they were simultaneously abandoned and unintentionally safeguarded, for a time.
But this is where it falls down. That reprieve from human progress isn’t permanent. It would be fine if the wild herds of deer and packs of wolves were still here, alongside the myriad other plants, insects, birds and animals needed for a balanced ecosystem, but they’re not.
We took out the key players in the landscape because they tasted good or they had sharp teeth and then left the rest to fend for themselves, and it’s not going great. With no herbivores to speak of the grasses and heathers are being swallowed up by bullish bracken and brambles. In a small number of places we’re ‘lucky’ that some native scrub plants and small trees are re-establishing, but that’s still a long way from ideal, as the habitat we’re losing is exponentially rarer and more valuable, but at least in those areas the plants that are emerging will support some of our local species (the benefit of being native).
On the other 95% of our coast this once beautiful rich landscape that was stable for aeons is struggling for its last strained breath. Biodiversity has nose-dived and the last vestiges of wild spaces on our Island are all but gone. Next time you’re out walking our coast, cast your eye to the foot of the cliffs for the last glimpse of this once majestic coastline, the grasses and heathers just above the water line still persist in places, but they’re… out of time.
In September last year, over 60 of the UK’s leading wildlife agencies and charities came together to publish the latest ‘State of Nature Report’. It states that since 1970, 54% of our flowering plants now occur in less places and some key fauna such as pollinators have reduced by almost 20%. These numbers are not indicating biodiversity decline, these numbers indicate our biodiversity is in crisis.
The next time you see our coast, close your eyes for a moment and see the shaped topography, rocky outcrops and streams the way they have been for tens of thousands of years, imagine magically diverse wild untamed grasslands interspersed with the vibrant purple flowers of heather and the brightest yellow gorse blooms. Imagine those wild deer running across the landscape. Open your eyes and what you see instead, the trees and bramble nestled amongst the vast expanses of bracken symbolise our neglect of our last wild space. It’s not a beautiful vista you see, it’s a tale of a relationship that spanned thousands of years followed by violently abrupt abandonment.
It’s not all that far from the plot of a romantic comedy. Unrequited love followed by a spectacularly callous show of complete indifference. If we read the book we’d hate us at this point, and rightfully so, but there’s just about enough room for a plot twist. If a last minute epiphany helps the antagonist realise just what they’re doing.
Many people believe letting natural processes shape these landscapes is fine, or even a good idea. I mean, it’s giving the spaces ‘back to nature’ right? Wrong. It’s never that simple.
You see we’ve gone too far, we’ve already introduced invasive and non-native species, we’ve unbalanced existing ecosystems beyond natural repair, taken away large scale herbivores and apex predators (and anything else we could eat or we considered to be mildly annoying) and we left the grasses and flowers to fend for themselves. It’s impossible for these landscapes to repair or sustain themselves without help. A lot of help.
This amazing landscape is a crucial part of the Jersey National Park and alongside The National Trust for Jersey and our Natural Environment Department these small and dedicated teams battle determinedly behind the scenes in an effort to protect and enhance these special places, but we’re losing the fight.
Whether we rise to the challenge or not is up to us. Without our help, they’ll continue to degrade, biodiversity will continue to decline and any last hope of restoring these beautiful and globally rare landscapes will be lost forever. Right this second we have the last traces of our very own amazon rainforest right on our back doorstep, but not for very long.
Aaron Le Couteur, founder of The Reserve, champions transformative conservation efforts in Jersey. With a background in both farming and conservation, his work has crucially bridged sustainable land management with biodiversity enhancement, in particular on the north coast of Jersey. By introducing the Manx Loaghtan sheep to the Island, Aaron has played an important role in habitat restoration, leveraging their grazing to naturally manage and rehabilitate the land.
Photo credit: Raife Robson