Queen Palms For Queensway Quay Marina

2010 started off stormy. Sea birds such as cormorants and razorbills still came to feed in Gibraltar's Queensway Quay Marina and thus confirmed that all is well. The developer now aims to further improve the area with the planting of queen palms by the waterline.

As our charity suggested in a novel approach, the two queen palms (syagrus romanzoffianum) are housed in large containers and thus can be planted close to the waterline. Holes in the containers permit each tree's roots to grow out of the containers and over the rocks into the sand between them. We are very confident that it will work.

The developer said, he is pleased with the outcome: Visitors who approach the jetty from the car park will have a better first impression of the marina. At the same time the green livery might prove attractive for birds such as sparrows, finches or starlings, which in turn might attract further species.

The Helping Hand Trust both carried out the initial Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the development of Queensway Quay Marina and advised on key features during its construction. The result is an eco-friendly marina: Appealing to locals and tourists alike, it also harbours a growing variety of marine and terrestrial species, some of which are listed as endangered species in Gibraltar's Nature Protection Ordinance. This result shows our charity once more that a close collaboration between developers and environmentalists can be of mutual benefit.