Good morning,
It is an absolute pleasure to welcome you to Jersey, and to the first day of the EAZA Directors Days 2019.
It also gives me particular pride that this event is being hosted by Jersey Zoo – the home of the global charity that is now the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.
2019 is an important Anniversary. For sixty years, this March, the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has been at the centre both of Island life and global efforts to protect the species closest to extinction.
Today, the Trust still lives by the four-word mission statement that it has followed since inception: 'Saving species from extinction'.
That short motto encapsulates Gerald Durrell's strongly held belief that we must act here and now to protect the animals who would not otherwise have a voice.
It is not an easy task.
No other zoo-based conservation organisation in the world puts such a high percentage of their total operating budget into conservation.
And the Trust remains dependent on the good will of generous benefactors, members and supporters.
But the successes of the last 60 years speak for themselves:
14 species saved from extinction
the survival chances of their target species increased by 150%
5,500 conservationists trained from 142 countries around the world and
over 400,000 hectares of habitat protected, equal to over 609,000 football pitches.
If today you were to visit the banks of Lake Sofia in the north of Madagascar, you would hear the distinctive sounds of 21 Madagascan pochards, calling from the world's first floating aviaries.
For 15 years that species of duck was thought extinct.
Thanks to the efforts of the Trust, their global partners and generous funding from around the world, the pochards have been brought back from the edge of elimination.
You will all have similar stories. That is hallmark of EAZA membership – a group who set the highest standards of education, research and conservation.
The Ark that the passionate staff and volunteers have built in Jersey Zoo truly is one of the Crown Jewels of our community, and represents a significant part of the Island's contribution to the world.
I am delighted to personally support their work, both here and globally.
In 2025, Gerald Durrell would have celebrated his 100th birthday. I don't doubt that he would have been awed by the passion and commitment that continues to be shown for his work, and that he would endorse the goals that have been set by Jersey Zoo for his Centenary year.
We all have a responsibility to ensure that his vision is made a reality.
In 2018 my government made a series of commitments for our term of office in our Common Strategic Policy.
Of the five key objectives that were agreed, one was this:
We will protect and value our environment.
We have committed to do this by embracing environmental innovation and ambition, by protecting the natural environment through conservation, protection, sustainable resource use and demand management.
It is an objective that I am committed to seeing made a reality – not just good intentions, but a promise to our local community to make tangible changes.
I am delighted that we are already engaging with Jersey Zoo as part of their Rewilding project, to assess our connectivity to the natural world.
At a time when the world is waking up to the crises we face in terms of climate change, loss of habitat and extinction of species, we cannot be complacent about the real risks that our planet is facing.
The strategic thinking that you will undertake here over the coming days is integral to ensuring that our grandchildren, and the many generations that follow them, are able to share in a valued natural world that is rich in biodiversity.
A world made wilder, healthier and more colourful by the species that you are all striving to protect.
I want to close my remarks with a few of Gerald Durrell's own words:
"Until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on the edge of extermination, dependent for existence on the charity of a few human beings."
I am thankful that our island, in a small way, can provide a refuge for those animals closest to extinction, and am grateful for the charity and passion shown by all the dedicated individuals in this room today.
Thank you.
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