Recycling officer Tina Norman-Ross gives a presentation to St Sampson’s Infants about the importance of composting. (Picture by Tom Tardif, 0767839)

A NEW States environmental policy plan will rely heavily on educating islanders and less on resources, according to minister Peter Sirett.

When launching his section of the new three-strand States Strategic Plan yesterday, which sets out the States’ 25-year environmental vision, the minister said it did not suggest that more land would be given up for development.

‘No, I don’t think it does,’ he said.

‘We must make sure Guernsey is developed in a way that is acceptable to the people of the island and it must be sustainable because once you develop it, it’s difficult to go back.’

One of the plan’s action points is to review the structure of the island’s special planning policies and the desirability and practicality of maintaining the urban and rural area plan divide.

Deputy Sirett said his team’s role was not to decide what the land should be allocated for, but how it should be used after it had been allocated.

The plan laid out a number of objectives and directions and a framework under which an environment, which was sustainable, biologically diverse and protective of traditional culture, would be looked after, he said. It addressed challenges and opportunities and then went into how those objectives would be delivered.

This would largely be through education and helping people and businesses to make environmentally informed decisions, said the minister.