The Ses Salines Formentera Natural Park covers a wide area, including the Es Trucadors peninsula and its surrounding sea. It extends to the wetlands that run around Estany Pudent and Estany des Peix, and it is also the term used to describe the old salt pans.
The salt works themselves closed down in 1984, but they remain part of the conservation area. Even though the salt pans are no longer used commercially the process of salt crystallization still continues and you see froth washing up against the walls of the salt pans, and on windy days it blows across the roads. The salt pans work by letting in water from Estany Pudent, which has a higher concentration of salt than the sea, and from there it crystallizes, with sluice gates opened to help water evaporate.
The mill wheel that was used to pump the salt pans was build in the UK town of Accrington. Unfortunately it was ordered in meters, but was built in feet and inches so the wheel house had to be rebuilt once the wheel arrived. The wheel is on the right as you go into Es Pujols from La Savina.
The area attracts wading birds that like living in mud, so-called limicolous birds. Although the wetlands are teeming with wildlife, the adventurous ornithologist can move off land into Es Freus to look for storm petrel, the Balearic shearwater, fisher eagles, cormorants, yellow-legged gull, and Audouin’s gull. Below the surface are the sea grass plants known as posidonia. The channel between Formentera and Ibiza is home to the longest living matter ever discovered: a posidonia plant eight miles long.
178 plant species have been identified in Ses Salines, including salicornia and halophilic vegetation.