Today is World Wetlands Day. As a signatory to the Ramsar Convention, the island has much to celebrate, as Environment’s senior land-management officer Martin Gavey explains The Stinky Pond or, to give it its real name, Pulias Pond, is the small pool behind the low granite wall on the bend before Ronez’s Les Vardes site in St Sampson’s.

Wedged between the sea and the road and surrounded by a shingle bank, the pond might easily be overlooked but there’s much more to it than you might think.

Pulias Pond is one of Guernsey’s rare and valuable wetland habitats. It is a sheltered area of shallow brackish water, a mix of seawater drawn through the shingle banks at high tide, and fresh water which drains from the low-lying land nearby.

At first sight the pond may not look very exciting but many of the insects and plants found at this nature reserve could not survive anywhere else.

It’s also an important feeding area for migrating wading birds, such as the common sandpiper, ruff and little stint, and is a favourite spot for little egrets. Salt-marsh plants growing around the pond include sea milkwort, rush, annual sea blite and prostrate glasswort, some of which are rare in Guernsey.

Other local wetland habitats worth a closer look include Les Vicheries orchid fields,

St Peter’s, where a stunning display can be seen each May and June, and St Saviour’s Reservoir, the largest freshwater area in the island often used by birds such as pochard, goldeneye and tufted duck.

The muddy margins around the reservoir teem with invertebrate life, which provides valuable feeding for wading birds including green sandpiper, greenshank and common sandpiper.

During the spring and autumn migrations, swallows and martins can be seen swooping over the water hunting insects and drinking, the reservoir providing an important stopover for these species.

If you are lucky, you might also catch a glimpse of a kingfisher, arguably one of the British Isles’ most beautiful birds, with its azure and golden-orange plumage. While most know it as a freshwater species, many do not realise that it can also be found around our coastline, nesting in the harbour walls and soft cliffs of Havelet Bay.

Indeed, it is Guernsey’s coastline of beaches, inter-tidal areas and offshore islets and reefs that forms our island’s greatest wetland habitat.

Caves and rock pools, shingle banks and sandy beaches all provide food and shelter for a huge range of plants and animals. How many of us remember as children exploring our rockpools wondering what we would find next in our nets, or fishing for ‘cabots’ or blennies off the little piers dotted around our coast?Such pools provide refuge for many species of flora and fauna as the tide goes out and the beach is exposed to the drying effect of the sun and wind.

Rockpoolers will be familiar with tiny,

red beadlet and green snakelocks,

anemones, which cover rocks and when exposed appear like blobs of jelly. However, on closer inspection, those with a keen eye will notice that there are other anemones too, including: dahlia, jewel, strawberry and trumpet varieties.

Under water, these creatures open up a cluster of tentacles with stinging cells that catch their prey as it drifts by.

As the net comes up, it produces more bounty: prawns, shrimps, crabs, pipefish and many other species.

In short our inter-tidal area and its mosaic of habitats sustain a rich diversity of marine life from hydroids and anemones and corals, to marine worms, crustaceans (crabs, hermit crabs, lobsters, prawns, shrimps and squat lobsters) and molluscs (including the beautiful blue-rayed limpet, the much sought-after ormer, painted topshell and whelks).

Then there are the nudibranchs (molluscs with no shell), or ‘sea slugs’ that feed on sponges, hydroids and sea squirts. These fascinating creatures are some of the most colourful but their small size makes them often easy to overlook.

Bryozoans too are easy to miss, but are among the most common animals of the rocky shore, often covering large areas. Each is a colony of hundreds of tiny animals, less than a millimetre across.

Echinoderm is the scientific name given to starfish and urchins and literally means ‘spiny skin’. These come in many varieties and have a unique method of propulsion – hollow tentacles known as ‘tube feet’, which the animal can extend or retract by altering the water pressure inside them. Tiny suckers on the end provide grip, allowing these creatures the ability to move across vertical or even overhanging surfaces.

Tide pooling can also uncover a wide variety of fish from pipefish (a relative of the seahorse) to the iridescent ballan or cuckoo wrasse which are the most colourful to be found in Channel Island waters. Short-snouted seahorses can be seen in eel grass beds.

With more than 200 species of seaweed recorded around our coastline, Guernsey’s inter-tidal area is an underwater garden waiting to be explored.

Many of its plants and animals are important to us both culturally and economically. Extracts from seaweeds are used in medicine and dentistry products as well as cosmetics, fertilisers and foodstuffs such as ice cream. Indeed, in the early part of the 19th century, vraic or seaweed was used to manufacture iodine in Lihou for use in medicine.

Since the first human habitation, our coastline has provided both food and fertiliser and still does so today, but we can’t take this natural bounty for granted.

All our wetlands need care and some degree

of management, whether inland or coastal. For example, the good feed of ormers that many islanders enjoy would quickly become a thing of the past if gathering were not regulated.

For centuries, the ormer has been collected by hand on the lowest spring tides, known locally as ormering tides.

A dramatic drop in stocks due to overfishing since the 19th century led to the introduction of strict fishing regulations governing when and how ormers can be gathered in order to protect them.

The international theme of this year’s World Wetlands Day is wetlands and fisheries in recognition of the importance of the latter to all people around the world.

Most of us eat fish (including shellfish): indeed one billion people rely on seafood as their main or sole source of protein. Yet the current state of the world’s fisheries is a matter of great concern.

While 75% of the commercially important marine fisheries are currently being overfished or are being fished at their biological limits, the demand continues to grow – indeed it has doubled in the past 40 years and is likely to continue to do so as the global population rises.

In addition, of the 35 million people currently involved in the industry, 95% live in developing countries and the majority are small-scale fishers – their livelihoods dependent on making sure that there will be stock for tomorrow.

Today marks the date of the signing of the Convention on Wetlands in 1971 in the Iranian city of Ramsar on the shores of the Caspian Sea. World Wetlands Day was celebrated for the first time in 1997 and made an encouraging beginning.

Each year, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and groups of citizens at all levels of the community have taken advantage of the opportunity to undertake actions aimed at raising public awareness of wetland values and benefits in general and the Ramsar Convention in particular.

The States of Guernsey signed up to it in 1999 and designated its first Ramsar site on 1 March last year. It measures 426 hectares and encompasses Lihou, La Claire Mare Nature Reserve and the Colin Best reserve, as well as the inter-tidal area and outlying reefs and rocks.

Designation of a wetland under the convention elevates the status of the site to that of ‘international importance’, bringing special notice to the environmental, cultural and heritage aspects of the area.

This recognition provides a positive focal point for new education, tourism and environmental initiatives which contribute to the long-term conservation and wise use of that particular site and other wetland areas.

Guernsey’s Ramsar site and the wide range of wildlife it supports is a source of pleasure and interest for many residents and visitors.

There’s always something to see and just driving past the Colin Best reserve, you may spot a group of attractive shelducks enjoying the shelter of the water, or a flock of curlews, elegantly tiptoeing through the pasture as they search for worms.

However, if you own a property with a corner of marshy land, or a stream running through it, it’s well worth taking some time to quietly observe the wildlife activity around it.

By making a point of watching what goes on in the area through the seasons, you’ll understand that, large or small, any wetland habitat is very important to the birds that feed on the specialised insects and plants that thrive in the damp environment.

We should think very carefully before deciding to ‘tidy up’ these wetland areas, which are very precious pieces of the mosaic of habitats that the island’s wildlife needs to flourish. If you’re lucky enough to have one on your doorstep, please cherish it – once lost, that special wetland is almost impossible to recreate.

Wetland habitats worth visiting

* La Grande Mare, Castel

* Le Grand Pre, Vale

* Rue des Bergers, Castel

* St Sampson’s Marais

* Talbot Valley

* Vale Marais

* Vale Pond and C. J. McCathie Nature Reserve

* If you want to find out more about World Wetlands Day, fisheries and how you can help to ensure the fish on your plate comes from sustainably managed sources, then log on to the Environment Department website at: www.gov.gg