2022 Guernsey Conservation Awards Winners

Our 2022 Conservation Awards Best Conservation Project winner in Guernsey has been named as Jamblin Flower Farm promoting ‘Sustainable flowers, starting conversations’. Dee and Jacques Sangan, who pride themselves on growing without the use of any pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilisers, said 'we are delighted to win this year's Conservation Awards in Guernsey and hope that our success raises awareness that nature can take care of itself'. The negative impact on the wider natural environment from pesticides is well known, so it is wonderful to highlight Jamblin Flower Farm’s partnership with nature, promoting beautiful and sustainable blooms.

This year’s Runner-up for Best Conservation Project, was awarded to Pierre Ehmann, Anthony Ford-Marsland and Matthew Stockreiter, for their Seagrass Conservation Documentary, they were thrilled to learn they had won the award, and had said the prize will enable them to push forward with further research. Seagrass has gained a lot of public attention in recent years due to its remarkable properties and with the Bailiwick having so many seagrass beds, their film dives underwater into the meadows.

Islanders were also invited to vote for their favourite entry through an online poll, to win The Peter Walpole People’s Choice Award. This Award was created in honour of the founder of Insurance Corporation and once again we were delighted by the number of votes received and interest from the public. This year’s winner was Zuzanna Soltysiak for her study of Spatio-temporal distribution of bottlenose dolphins in Guernsey. The project will use historic records of dolphin sightings logged to the Guernsey Biological Records Centre and Dolfin ID project to map a spatial and temporal distribution of bottlenose dolphins in Guernsey waters. Surveys will also be carried out over the summer of 2022 to collect more in depth sighting data through a series of boat and shore-based surveys, gathering photo identification of groups and individuals, to gain insight into pod dynamics. Zuzanna said:

‘I’m so happy to have won The People's Choice Award, this will be so beneficial for my project, and the prize will go towards doing more boat surveys and giving back to the people that have already helped me, as without them I couldn't have done it.’

The Best Youth Group was awarded to Elizabeth College Eco Club’s Fresh Veg Initiative, who are growing vegetables to supply to the school refectory and local community. They said, it is so exciting to win the award, the prize money will enable us to buy more items to grow.

The Guernsey Conservation Volunteers were highly commended for their ‘Restoration of Coastal Habitats through the removal of Sour Fig’ around the island.

Our awards have been running for over three decades and we continue to be delighted by the diverse and exciting range of entries we receive. There are so many islanders committed to protecting and enhancing the natural environment within the Bailiwick and this has to be a wonderful thing for our community and the future of the Bailiwick – our congratulations go to them all and we look forward to presenting our Jersey winners next week.