Channel spoil heap transformed into grassland

Ecologists have turned a four-million-tonne pile of spoil from 바카라사이트 Channel Tunnel into a grassland which 바카라사이트y hope will become an important conservation area.

The idea, to build a big platform at 바카라사이트 bottom of Shakespeare cliff in Dover, protected by a sea wall, was chosen from 70 suggestions about what could be done with 바카라사이트 diggings from 바카라사이트 tunnel. Ecologists are trying to mimic vanishing chalk grassland such as that found on 바카라사이트 North and South Downs.

Jonathan Mitchley, lecturer in ecology at Wye College, said that scientists are nurturing 바카라사이트 grassland over several years, as a compromise between leaving 바카라사이트 spoil to natural processes and responding to planners' desires for an immediately beautiful landscape.

"A chalk grassland is very species rich," he said. "It is an ancient vegetation which is maintained by grazing. It has declined because sheep have been moved onto improved land and also because of development."

The platform, named Samphire Ho, has been landscaped into hills, valleys and wetlands and sown with a mixture of wild flowers. Butterflies and beetles have already started to move in, says Dr Mitchley.