World's First Dark
Sky Island
Sark is now officially recognised for
its quality of dark night sky. Steve Owens, freelance science
communicator who advised and supported the Sark project tells us:
“I made two visits to Sark during
2010 to assess the darkness of Sark's skies, and to carry out a
lighting audit of all outside lights on the island. What I
discovered - and what residents of Sark already knew - was that Sark
was very dark indeed, and had very little of the light pollution
that so badly affects towns and cities elsewhere. This made Sark the
perfect candidate to become an official Dark Sky Island, but wasn't
in itself enough.
In order to qualify, the community
of Sark had to demonstrate that they were committed to reducing
light pollution, and to that end the Chief Pleas commissioned and
adopted a Lighting Management Plan to guide them on good lighting on
the island, and a number of businesses modified and replaced their
old lights with newer, better, non-light-polluting ones.
I hope that this award brings lots
of visitors to Sark during the winter months, and so acts as a boost
to the local economy, and thereby encourages more of Sark's
residents and businesses to light their properties better, and more
in keeping with the splendid darkness that the island enjoys."
