Data Zone
Country/territory: Netherlands
IBA Criteria met: A4iii, B2, C4 (2016)
For more information about IBA criteria please click here
Area: 833 ha
Protection status:
| Most recent IBA monitoring assessment | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Year of assessment | Threat score (pressure) | Condition score (state) | Action score (response) |
| 2018 | very high | not assessed | high |
| For more information about IBA monitoring please click here | |||
Site description
The site comprises the main part of the easternmost of the five inhabited barrier islands in the Wadden Sea (adjacent to site 001), but excludes the village and the adjoining part of grassland polder. The total length is 14 km, with a maximum width of 2,500 m. Habitats include beaches, shifting and fixed sand-dunes with herbaceous vegetation or crowberry Empetrum nigrum, humid dune-slacks, cord-grass Spartina swards, saltmarshes, mudflats, freshwater marsh and improved grassland. Land-uses include scattered houses, recreational facilities, dairy farming and groundwater abstraction.
Key biodiversity
The raised saltmarshes are an important spring feeding area for Branta bernicla and the grassland polder is also a feeding area for Branta leucopsis. The area is an important high-tide roost for tens of thousands of waterbirds that feed in the Wadden Sea. Platalea leucorodia established a breeding colony in 1994.
Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2021) Important Bird Areas factsheet: Duinen Schiermonnikoog. Downloaded from
http://www.birdlife.org on 17/04/2021.
