World Ranger Day is on 31 July every year. Let’s take a look at how our rangers and volunteers have been working in the Chichester Harbour National Landscape recently.
With a unique blend of coastal, wetland and terrestrial habitats, our rangers Rosie and Jack have a wide and varied work plan. Supported by a team of Volunteer Rangers, as well as work party volunteers from the Friends of Chichester Harbour, the last few months have been as busy as ever. Here’s a small snapshot…
Nature Recovery
Nature recovery is at the heart of what we do, and our rangers are at the heart of this. In May they led teams of volunteers to prepare and launch our tern rafts. The rafts are critically important breeding habitat for Common Terns and have been a real nature recovery success story, but getting them ready, launched and regular inspections takes a lot of work!
The summer season means survey season here; fish surveys (part of the monitoring work we do with our Solent Seascape Project nature restoration work), seal surveys and surveying terrestrial habitats.
Access to the National Landscape
Access to the National Landscape is one of their core roles and maintaining footpaths and the Salterns Way cycle route. At Fishbourne Meadows the rangers and volunteers recently removed broken sections of boardwalk, ahead of footpath improvements for the King Charles III England Coast Path. Rosie and Jack can often be seen mending/installing fencing, fixing gates, and cutting back the undergrowth around many of the harbour’s paths.
Volunteer Power
The weekly volunteer work parties are critical to the maintenance and conservation within the National Landscape. Over the last few weeks volunteers have put in hours of hard work from path maintenance to litter picking. Several volunteers put in the hard hours two weeks ago at Langstone foreshore, removing rubble, debris and plastic sandbags ahead of work by Hampshire County Council in the autumn to install a boardwalk.
Our rangers really are at the core of this National Landscape. This World Ranger Day, we thank them for their critical role here in Chichester Harbour.