To maintain or improve the ecological health of the salt ponds

Restore And Maintain The “Mares”

How to maintain and/or restore a “mare”, or waterhole in a tropical* context? This question was the object of a mission commissioned by the Humid Zones Department as part of the REMA project—Restoration and Maintenance of “Mares” In The Antilles. Two experts were mandated to evaluate the current state of such waterholes in Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Saint Martin, where they were working on February 14, 2022. Their goal was to select a group of test sites, which will serve as examples to illustrate a guidebook for the management of waterholes. These specialists observed the absence of waterholes within the Réserve Naturelle and only retained two sites on the French side of the island. The first is the waterhole located in front of the fire station, which has been quite impacted and covered with water hyacinths, water lilies, and water lettuce, and which is swarming with guppies. According to the Collectivité, this waterhole is intended to be filled in and will thus disappear. The second waterhole is found in the Millrum area, across from the central kitchen. A repository for used water from the treatment station of the same name, its evaluation is underway.

The REMA project, which runs for 26 months, hopes to provide those working in the environmental sector a tool that will provide concrete answers to the technical questions that arise in terms of improvements, maintenance, and follow-up after restoration. More than 3,500 waterholes have been counted in Guadeloupe and approximately 1,100 in Martinique.

*A zone regularly subject to periods of intense drought and biological invasions.

The Réserve Naturelle received permission from the Collectivité to establish a nursery for mangroves on a tract of land temporarily made available to the Réserve by the Conservatoire du Littoral, close to the Orient Salt Pond. Funded by a grant from the Rotary Club, the goal is to replant 100,000 mangrove shoots in the salt ponds where the vegetation was decimated by hurricane Irma. The staff has been gathering seeds, pods, and seedlings in the field, and been growing them day-by-day in their facility in Anse Marcel. The shoots are placed in biodegradable pots made of sugar cane fiber that will be placed in the silt where the mangroves will develop. A wood structure will be built to provide shade for the shoots, before all of the seedlings are moved to the nursery. The Saint Martin Rotary Club financed 50% of the project, whose total cost is estimated at 48,500€. Delma Maduro, regional district governor for Rotary International, paid a visit to the nursery site on October 21, accompanied by members of the local club, and expressed enthusiasm for the project after listening to an introduction provided by the staff. Signage posted at the site has made the project official, in keeping with the methodology of the IUCN (International Union For Conservation Of Nature).

As residents were complaining about loud noise and debris between the main road and the Etang de Chevrise, agents from the Réserve Nnaturelle went to see what the problem was. There they could see that a mechanical shovel had dug between three and four meters deep, close to the funeral parlor, and a large volume of earth and rubble had been used to fill in below the pond, but not where the water is, and that area belongs to the Conservatoire du Littoral and is managed by the Réserve. Yet the nature of the material, especially in case of heavy rain, represents a real threat of creating silt in the pond, and the Réserve remains vigilant in its surveillance of this worksite. Additional expertise will determine if such encroachment by depositing such materials on land already classified under a biotope protection order is possible, and see what to do about it.

This clean-up operation has since continued with the six agents of the association ACED and Aude Berger, tasked by Conservatoire for the coordination of the clearing of the sites since July 1. The collection of debris, both large and small, is sorted before taken to the trash center at the eco-site, where they are treated. Three car bodies, a good-sized boat, and a jet ski were removed thanks to this effort, as well as numerous personal objects, such as clothing, stuffed animals, and a large number of car parts. The Conservatoire appreciates the work done by ACED, especially in the ponds, where is it not easy to remove debris from the silt and pull it onto the shore, either by hand or on a kayak. At the Etang de Grand-Case, which is badly polluted, the agents worked between 5am and 7am, before air traffic began for the day. In July, they has help from 20 Belgian scouts and 100 scouts from France, supervised by the agents from the Réserve Naturelle, as well as by such associations as What de 9 and Clean Saint-Martin, and several local residents. The result today is that almost all of the ponds are clean, or will be by mid-December.