Ses Feixes is an area of wetland on the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

island of

Ibiza Ibiza (natively and officially in ca, Eivissa, ) is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of the Balearic Islands, in Spain. Its l ...

. The area is on the northern side of the municipality of Ibiza town.Mapa Topografico Nacional de Espana, 798 Eivissa. 1:50.000. Published: IGN - CNIG (Spain Civilian Survey): 2006.

Description

The wetland area known as ''Ses Feixes'' is situated between ''Ibiza Town'' and runs in a crescent around Ibiza bay to ''Talamanca''.Ibiza & Formentera’s Heritage, A Non-clubber’s Guide. Author: Paul R Davis Pub:Barbary Press, 2009, These wet lowlands are an important wintering ground and resting place for many migratory birds and constitutes a key haven for wildlife. The wetlands support a great variety of fauna and flora and include rare

bats Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most bi ...

reptiles Reptiles, as most commonly defined are the animals in the Class (biology), class Reptilia ( ), a paraphyletic grouping comprising all sauropsid, sauropsids except birds. Living reptiles comprise turtles, crocodilians, Squamata, squamates (lizar ...

, and more than 140 species of

birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

.Ibiza Preservation Fund
The area is very important as wetlands such as these are rapidly disappearing in the Mediterranean region.

History

It was the

Moors The term Moor, derived from the ancient Mauri, is an exonym first used by Christian Europeans to designate the Muslim inhabitants of the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily and Malta during the Middle Ages. Moors are not a distinct or ...

who brought with them to Ibiza the expertise and knowledge to turn dry parched land into usable

fertile Fertility is the capability to produce offspring through reproduction following the onset of sexual maturity. The fertility rate is the average number of children born by a female during her lifetime and is quantified demographically. Fertilit ...

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

land. They constructed a complicated network of

cisterns A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

reservoirs A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

, waterwheels and

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow Crop, crops, Landscape plant, landscape plants, and Lawn, lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,00 ...

canals Canals or artificial waterways are waterways or river engineering, engineered channel (geography), channels built for drainage management (e.g. flood control and irrigation) or for conveyancing water transport watercraft, vehicles (e.g. ...

. These schemes which included ''Ses Feixes'' transformed the original wetland into extremely productive land, by moving vast amounts of water away. This in turn gave the moors the water supply to free up the potential of dryer tracts of land. These schemes turned both wetland and the parched ground into fertile agricultural land. At ''Ses Feixes'' . These ingenious irrigation systems transformed the original wetland into extremely productive land, farmed until the late 1950s. Once the loose marshes soil of these wetlands had been reclaimed from the sea, a mosaic of long narrow plots (''feixa or field'') were created by running narrow canals (''séquies'') around the plots. These plots or strips were then crossed laterally by underground drainage culverts (''Fibles''). These culverts kept the soil above well watered. At the entrance to each tract of land there was a distinctive gateway called a (''Compuertas'') which also acted, in some cases, as a Hydraulic damper. The gateways were built from rendered stone and whitewashed and are reminiscent of similar structures seen in ancient

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

and the

Middle East The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...

. In there prime the fields at ''Ses Feixes'' produced harvests of vegetables on a duel rotation system each year. Produce such as

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of ''Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.&nb ...

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Unit ...

es,

tomato The tomato is the edible berry of the plant ''Solanum lycopersicum'', commonly known as the tomato plant. The species originated in western South America, Mexico, and Central America. The Mexican Nahuatl word gave rise to the Spanish word ...

es,

melon A melon is any of various plants of the family Cucurbitaceae with sweet, edible, and fleshy fruit. The word "melon" can refer to either the plant or specifically to the fruit. Botanically, a melon is a kind of berry, specifically a "pepo". The ...

s, beans and

Sweet potato The sweet potato or sweetpotato (''Ipomoea batatas'') is a dicotyledonous plant that belongs to the Convolvulus, bindweed or morning glory family (biology), family, Convolvulaceae. Its large, starchy, sweet-tasting tuberous roots are used as a r ...

grew in the fields

Threatened environment

In the time that this once-productive environment has lain dormant, it has become increasingly under threat from the construction and development around the northern shore line of Ibiza bay. A new road was built in the 1970s,UNESCO World Heritage report
which cut off some of the wetland's water outlets and fragmented the original wetland into two smaller sections of ''Prat de Vila'' and ''Prat de Ses Monges'', and the area now has suffered from total abandonment. The island's authorities have now designated the area as a ''

green belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which hav ...

'' and

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

has recognized the importance of the site. Despite this recognition, the area is facing a new threat from developers. The Spanish government has given the go-ahead for a new harbor development. As part of the plans, it has been suggested that a new road be built to carry the expected increase in traffic. The route of this road could put it right through the fragile wetland area.

Encouraging signs

The wetlands of ''Ses Feixes'' was made a Site of Cultural Interest (Bien de Interés Cultural) in 2006 and renewed in 2009, which can be considered as a positive step for conservation, as a buffer zone of the UNESCO World Heritage property of Ibiza.World Heritage Ibiza
/ref> This will provide the area some protection but stronger measures are required to preserve the site perpetually. In November 2009 the UNESCO World Heritage property of Ibiza, Biodiversity and Culture reported that the ''Ses Feixes'' areas of ''Prat de Vila'' and ''Prat de Ses Monges'' should be included in to the world heritage site as they have great value in their own right and are evidence of the ingenious Moorish system of land cultivation, but they represent the best evidence of the mixed cultural and natural values of the world heritage site. The wetland system of the Ses Feixes has an important relationship with the off shore Posidonia oceanica meadows.

The future

Recently some restoration work has been carried out on the ancient portals, along with cleaning of the main drainage canals. In the future it is hoped that an interpretation centre will be built, an event which would mark an important step in the area's preservation, if implemented. The Ibiza Preservation Fund has furnish projects to raise awareness of the environmental and cultural significance of this ancient wetland. Eight hectares of wetland were destroyed within two hours in an intentional fire on the 6th of March, 2017. The current conditions of the Feixes and the future of this land are unclear

Gallery

File:Ses Feixes Des Prat De Vila-Ibiza.JPG, Ses Feixes Des Prat De Vila File:Ses-Feixes-Ibiza-1.JPG, Ses Feixes Prat De Ses Monges (Talamanca) File:Ses-Feixes-Ibiza-3.JPG, Explanation De Ses Feixes File:Ses-Feixes-Ibiza-2.JPG, Ses Feixes, Cultural Heritage File:Ses-Feixes-Ibiza-4.JPG, Old entry to a Feixa

References

{{World Heritage Sites in Spain Wetlands of Ibiza History of Ibiza Irrigation in Spain