To support this project, please contact Helen Litchfield: botany@societe.org.gg 

The Botany Section of La Société Guernesiaise has around 80 members, including some overseas participants who stay connected via monthly newsletters and occasional visits. Regular botanical field meetings are held throughout the year, alongside winter indoor sessions. Within the Section there is a small group which collects plant records across the Bailiwick, contributes to national surveys, and maintains a historic herbarium accessible for study. Monthly updates highlight recent finds, meeting reports, and upcoming events.

For more information visit the Botany Section webpage.

Botany Section Facebook page

La Société Guernesiaise is a charitable organisation founded in 1882 to encourage the study of the history, natural history, geography and geology of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the conservation of the Bailiwick’s natural environment and the preservation of its historic buildings and monuments. Its activities extend into many other areas, including history, archaeology and astronomy. It owns or manages the majority of nature reserves on Guernsey. The organisation runs a variety of community outreach and engagement activities, from producing in-depth scientific publications and providing lectures, to hosting public events for all ages, such as junior bird-ringing demonstrations.

Accurate identification plays a vital role in documenting biodiversity, and the ability to pass on botanical knowledge is proving to be ever-more important.

Inviting UK experts to the island to assist in developing the knowledge of the Botany Section of La Société Guernesiaise is costly. With more senior members of the Section heading for retirement, investing in tools like high-resolution plant imagery and collaboration with outside expertise will help the Section to grow identification skills, resulting in more accurate recording of our plant life and building longer-term support for evidence-based decision making on island biodiversity.

Through generous support from La Société Guernesiaise and a private donation the Botany Section has purchased high resolution camera equipment, but the large image files produced cannot be processed effectively by our current computer. Additional funding is needed to enable the purchase of a laptop so that high resolution photographs can be processed.

                                 

The cost of a high-performance laptop suitable for scientific image processing and editing is anticipated to be £1,500.

This project helps to progress against the following UN Sustainable Development Goals:

• #4 quality education
• #13 climate action
• #15 life on land