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WORLD SAND DUNE DAY

World Sand Dunes Day is an international day of awareness raising that aims to highlight the importance and beauty of dunes, and is Saturday 29th of June. If you’re planning a World Sand Dune Day event, you’re welcome to send the details to DynamicDunescapes Emma.Waldron(at)naturalengland.org.uk  and she will add it to the WSDD webpage. They collate events every year to showcase the global celebrations and have reached as far as South America and Australia. Head to the website to see more about World Sand Dune Day or their Trello Board to download resources and find inspiration for your own posts. Don’t forget to tag (@dyamicdunes) and use the hashtag #WorldSandDuneDay !

In the Netherlands are some special excursions, e.g. Egmond aan Zee, Kwade Hoek, Kennemerduinen, and in Domburg.

In Belgium and France will be an excursion through the Westhoek Reserve and the Dune du Perroquet between De Panne and Bray-Dunes. The Agency for Nature and Forests in cooperation with the Département du Nord is organizing a guided excursion through the cross-border Belgian-French dune area 'Westhoek nature reserve - Dune du Perroquet', the widest and most extensive dune area on the Flemish coast. Meeting and start at 10am at the car park of Café Perroquet 23 in De Panne, Duinhoekstraat 174, right next to the French-Belgian state border.

The Belgian Westhoek Reserve and the French Dune du Perroquet will be traversed across their full width. Large-scale sand drifts, humid dune slacks, high seafront dunes, formation of dunes from washed-up seaweed on the beach, and the results of nature restoration works under LIFE and INTERREG projects co-financed by the European Union will be highlighted. The guided walk will end where it started, at Café Perroquet 23, where participants will be offered an aperitif. The walk guided by Flemish and French rangers and the drink are free of charge.

The nature reserve 'De Westhoek' is owned by the Flemish Region and managed by the Agency for Nature and Forests. The adjacent 'Dune du Perroquet' is owned by the French state institution Conservatoire du Littoral' and managed by the Département du Nord.

For several years, several Flemish and French government agencies have been working together towards the creation of a cross-border European nature park of the 'Westkust - Dunes de Flandre'. The Franco-Flemish dune belt ‘French Dunes of Flanders and Flemish West Coast Dunes’ extend from French Dunkirk to Belgian Lombardsijde.

 

Sands of LIFE Conference

Last months the conference took place in Wales. The recordings of the presentations are now available here: SoLIFE Conference webpage

The conference included:
Findings and highlights from Sands of LIFE’s five years of action for biodiversity.
Informative presentations from local and international speakers on the latest developments in sand dune conservation and management.
Networking, collaborating and sharing of best practice between leading sand dune managers from across the UK and Northern Europe.
Site visits to world class sand dunes on the Isle of Anglesey.
The unique culture, landscapes and language of beautiful North Wales.

You will find presentations about:

Sands of Life - Five years of action:

A roundup of project achievements (Kathryn Hewitt, Sands of LIFE Project Manager)
A generation of change - sand dune vegetation monitoring (Steven Heathcote, JBA Consulting, Principal Ecologist)
Jewels of the dunes – impact of conservation measures on Welsh dune invertebrates (Mike Howe, Natural Resources Wales, Invertebrate ecologist)

Forestry on dunes:

Landscape transformations and logistical challenges in Wales (Laura Davies, SoLIFE Project and Monitoring Officer and Kathryn Hewitt)
What works best – A trial of interventions following conifer removal (Mark van Til, Nature Management Advisor, Waternet, Netherlands)
Past and future conifer removal on Ainsdale Sand Dunes NNR (Dave Mercer, Manager at Ainsdale Sand Dunes National Nature Reserve, Natural England)

Radical responses:

Over 15 years of European bison in the dunes of Zuid-Kennemerland (Esther Rodriguez, PWN, Netherlands)
Implementing the SNAP approach (managing nitrogen air pollution) (Siobhan Murphy, Monitoring Officer Dynamic Dunescapes)
We did not expect that! Our first experience translocating rabbits (Luc Geelan, Nature Management Advisor, Waternet Netherlands)
Recreating dunes on agricultural land (Jeppe Pilgaard, Biologist & Project Manager, Thy National Park, Denmark)

Tackling challenges:

Controlling invasive alien species – lessons learnt from the LIFE DUNIAS project (Reinhardt Strubbe, LIFE DUNIAS Project Manager, Belgium)
Going out with a bang – coping with unexploded ordnance (Lucy Smith, SoLIFE Project and Monitoring Officer)
Valuing dunes – socio - economic benefits (Kate Linck, SoLIFE Finance and Admin Officer)

Around the UK - future plans, ambitions and strategies:

Scotland (Stewart Angus, NatureScot)
England (Marina Pugh, Coastal Habitats Senior Specialist Advisor, Natural England)
Wales – including the Welsh Sand Dune Strategy (Julie Creer, Coastal Habitats Lead Specialist Advisor, Natural Resources Wales)
UK Sand Dune and Shingle network relaunch (Paul Rooney, Senior Lecturer, Liverpool Hope University & Ben McCarthy, Head of Nature Conservation National Trust)

NITROGEN BIOMONITORING with BRYOPHYTES in DUNES

Jeroen Geurts, Camiel Aggenbach, Eva Remke, Maxime Lemmens & Erik Sanz Mali

High nitrogen levels indicate overload from deposition. This study examined the influence of nitrogen loads on dune grassland ecosystems by measuring nitrogen levels in mosses and lichens. Moss samples in Dutch and other Northwest European dune areas were collected in a range from relatively low to relatively high nitrogen deposition. At most Dutch monitoring sites in dry dune grasslands, the nitrogen content in pleurocarp mosses is high and in the range where saturation with nitrogen occurs in the biomass due to high nitrogen deposition. This is one of the reasons why nitrogen content in mosses in Dutch dune grasslands currently has no clear relationship with modelled nitrogen deposition, whereas mosses and lichens in reference areas with a lower nitrogen deposition do show this relationship. It can be concluded that the current nitrogen deposition has a major impact on the nitrogen cycle in the vast majority of Dutch dune grasslands.

The publication in dutch, you will find HERE