Pevensey Levels is a biological
Site of Special Scientific Interest between
Bexhill-on-Sea and
Hailsham
Hailsham is a town, a civil parish and the administrative centre of the Wealden district of East Sussex, England.OS Explorer map Eastbourne and Beachy Head Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton B2 edition. Publishing Da ...
in
East Sussex.
It is a
Nature Conservation Review
''A Nature Conservation Review'' is a two-volume work by Derek Ratcliffe, published by Cambridge University Press in 1977. It set out to identify the most important places for nature conservation in Great Britain. It is often known by the initial ...
site, Grade I, a
Ramsar site and a
Special Area of Conservation
A Special Area of Conservation (SAC) is defined in the European Union's Habitats Directive (92/43/EEC), also known as the ''Directive on the Conservation of Natural Habitats and of Wild Fauna and Flora''. They are to protect the 220 habitats and a ...
. An area of is a
national nature reserve and an area of is a nature reserve called Pevensey Marshes which is managed by the
Sussex Wildlife Trust
The Sussex Wildlife Trust (SWT) is a conservation charity which aims to protect natural life in Sussex. It was founded in 1961 and is one of 46 wildlife trusts across the UK and the Isle of Man and Alderney. , it has 33,000 members and manages ...
.
This is a large area of wetland grazing meadows intersected by a network of ditches. It has many nationally rare invertebrates. It may be the best site in Britain for freshwater
mollusc fauna, including the endangered
shining ram's-horn snail. It also has one nationally rare and several nationally scarce aquatic plants and it is of national importance for
lapwing
Lapwings (subfamily Vanellinae) are any of various ground-nesting birds (family Charadriidae) akin to plovers and dotterels. They range from in length, and are noted for their slow, irregular wingbeats in flight and a shrill, wailing cry. A gro ...
, with more than 1% of the British population.
References
{{Sussex Wildlife Trust
Sussex Wildlife Trust
Sites of Special Scientific Interest in East Sussex
National nature reserves in England
Nature Conservation Review sites
Ramsar sites in England
Special Areas of Conservation in England
Levels