Today in the salt marshes, around 250 “paludiers” i.e. salt workers harvest approximately 12000 mt of salt a year. Guérande’s salt marshes represent a great and unique heritage and form a natural paradise home to many migratory birds.
Sea salt is still produced in the salt marshes around Guérande in the same way today as it was a thousand years ago, i.e. hand-harvested, using wooden tools. Sea-water is allowed through the dyke at high tide and flows through a network of pools. Salt workers are able to draw off water from the reservoir and direct it along ditches. Then the process of evaporation begins thanks to the drying action of wind and sun.For more than 1000 years the paludiers have worked this fragile mosaic of clay and water.