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FINDINGS OF THE BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION WORKSHOPS (DRAFT)

SESSION LEADER – SARAH FOWLER, NATURE CONSERVATION BUREAU

Bird conservation and sustainable development, Dave Burges, RSPB

MAIN ISSUES

ECOLOGY

Research needs

• Interactions between sites
• Relationships to international flyway populations
• ‘health’ of bird populations – indicators/bioaccumulators
  

PLANNING AND POLICY

Collaboration

• Links between researchers (volunteers/professionals) and planners
• Translation of results into actions
• Desk studies of existing works
• Opportunities for managed retreat
• Solent Shorebird Conference
  

HABITAT MANAGEMENT AND CREATION

Research

• Sediment/invertebrates/bird studies
  

Management

• Roost disturbance
• Bait digging
• Wildfowling/refuges
• Buffer areas

EDUCATION AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

Collaboration

• Effective communication. Importance of the Solent!

QUANTIFYING THE IMPACTS OF DEVELOPMENT

Research

• Baseline studies
• Before/after comparisons of the impacts of development. Examples from the Solent and elsewhere.

Sea level rise and nature conservation, Dr Robert Page, Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust

Main issues

• We need modelling of the Solent on the effects of sea level rise based on the current situation. No action will be taken until coastal communities realise that their homes are at risk.

• There is a need for the modelling of visions on the future potential for habitats/species creation in the context of the economic situation (land purchase, planning realignment, bearing in mind the timescale for habitat recreation).

• The above needs to be put into the UK and international context, but local biodiversity must be maintained. Habitat creation in other regions is not an adequate replacement for Solent losses.

• Need for a single national authority charged with this – current functions are too diffuse. Modelling will not happen unless it is commissioned.

SAC management and information needs (Graham Bathe, English Nature)

Why?

Need information to meet statutory requirements.

Baseline

• Long term data sets
• Understanding of processes (natural and man-modified changes and impacts).

Monitoring and reporting

• Success of management
• Conflict resolution
• Impact of proposed development/unplanned events, drawing up of a management scheme

What information is needed?

• Collation of existing data – baseline
• Broadscale habitat mapping
• Review of historical processes/activities
• Vulnerability/sensitivity of biotopes/features
• Assess how natural driving forces operate and are modified by man
• Human uses – physical and potentially damaging activities
• Long term prognosis re. Sea level rise
  

How can the SAC stimulate economic development?

Archaeology (Garry Momber, Hants & Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology)

Since 1992, new initiatives by the Isle of Wight Council, Hampshire County Council, English Heritage and the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology have revealed a wide array of palaeo-environmental evidence identifying submerged forests, earlier shorelines, wave-cut platforms and deep sediments associated with former configurations of the Solent estuarine system. At the same time, Government planning policy guidance on coastal planning (PPG20) and the new Shoreline Management Plans for the United Kingdom have highlighted the need for coastal planners and engineers to achieve a firm understanding of local and regional coastal processes and the overall scale and pace by which coastline changes are proceeding.

Key Issues

• The age of the Solent, as an open seaway separating the Isle of Wight, is still unknown. Without this vital piece of evidence the nature, scale and pace of present coastal erosion cannot be viewed in a context which is sufficiently secure to permit reliable predictions of future trends and coastal protection needs.
• Recent archaeological surveys in the inter-tidal and sub-tidal zones have identified submerged palaeo-landscapes where evidence offered by the study of pollen, diatoms and tree-ring chronology can identify and fix environmental changes on the Solent coast over the past 8,000 years. A suite of radiocarbon dates, obtained mostly for archaeological purposes, has helped to fix some specific events.
• The preliminary results of the new surveys in the Solent demonstrate that many of the archaeological and palaeo-environmental sites in the coastal zone should be viewed as critical sources of evidence concerning long-term coastal processes. At present there has been a noticeable tendency to view such sites simply as a conservation issue concerning cultural resources or, at best, the historic environment. This was perceptible in the structure of the conference programme.

Research Priorities

• Since the completion of Shoreline Management Plans, Government, through Agenda 21, has expressed new concerns over the need to understand and measure long-term trends in climate change and sea-level rise. In coastal areas, like the Solent, where deep deposits of silt and mud are present, `sediment archives' have accrued which tell of long term changes in the Holocene coastline and the local and regional environment. These `archives' and the tree-ring sequences from the submerged forests should be seen as potential pieces in the reconstruction and understanding of European and global climate history. In this case there is a need to identify such sites and to include them in the Sites and Monuments Records and Environmental Records which inform Central Government and guide the decisions of local authorities. By these means, thoughtless and unnecessary loss of these non-renewable scientific sites should be averted and steps can be taken to ascertain their full scientific potential.

The Way Forward

• Continued research is necessary to identify and study these invaluable sites. Members of the workshop, including the commercial sector, agreed to pool resources and, with the assistance of SCOPAC, pursue European partners with like interests.

Fisheries (Antony Jensen, SOES, University of Southampton)

Aquaculture Potential

• Constraints (water quality, vandalism/theft, exotics, planktonic food, skills and motivation of fishermen)
• Possibilities/opportunities (Fawley outflow – fluctuates, collaboration with academics on pre-feasibility studies, artificial reefs for protection, Southampton Institute/CEFAS biofilms study
• Existing experiences (bivalve fattening and Manila clams in Poole Harbour, Oyster farming in Newtown and Beaulieu, Bonamia Poole, Emsworth oyster poisoning

Fisheries Management

• Need for local initiatives (no coherent industry/community – anarchy and competition!)
• But: example of Hythe clam relaying
• Spanish vocational training initiative as a model?

Gravel extraction and crab fishing

• Six years of data from Hastings
• Need for a Solent study on female crab migration
• Difficulties associated with collaborative research – perception that data may be used against the industry

Lack of quality fin fishery data

• Better links with fishermen
• Reduce mutual suspicion between regulators and fishermen
• Improve anonymity of data collecting/handling
• Voluntary logbook system with follow up feedback
• Spy in the cab winch activity monitoring?

Habitat creation (Philip Couchman, Chichester Harbour Conservancy)

Main issues

• Definition of priorities, objectives and opportunities
• Insufficient knowledge
• Getting the land/money, marketing the idea to the public

Research priorities

• Greater understanding of processes
• Experimentation linked to monitoring
• Intertidal recharge with fine sediment

Collaborative research opportunities

• Solent habitat creation strategy
• Register of projects
• Publications and liaisons

Other concerns

• Concerns about the loss of naturalness
• Policies of retreat
• Dissemination of existing experience

OVERALL CONCLUSIONS

Information Needs

There is a need to collate existing work and baselines. Much work up to now has been an inventory. We now need a greatly improved understanding of processes, if we are to meet the challenge of managing dynamic systems and migratory species. There is an order of magnitude difference between knowing where the resource is and whether it is important, and having to manage it!

Moving into this new field will drive the research agenda significantly in the future. Researchers should understand the policy and legislative context when planning research programmes – how can managers have more of an input into helping to set research priorities?

Integration

• Of information and management systems
• GIS – opportunities to use existing Solent area Institutes
• Of research and policy-making communities, managers and users
• Role of the Solent Forum

Regional Vs National Picture

• The Solent is not unique – we need to assess best practice and experience from other areas
• The Solent is unique – we cannot replace lost Solent habitats at other sites, e.g. East Anglia where there is a different climate, different species and different communities
  

Strategic Approach – all important

• Understanding sea level rise in the Solent and the need to identify an associated habitat creation strategy
• Modelling of sea level rise in the Solent
• The need to take a long term view, 25, 50, 75+ years, including economic factors and the land use planning context
• Setting of priorities and targets and the need to monitor progress
  

The need for a single authority?

• Too many authorities, lack of a holistic approach
• The expense of modelling and other initiatives, these are not likely to happen unless commissioned
• Central database of information – possibly accessed from the internet. Solent Forum to act as a broker?
• Role for IACMST? But would this really address the issues of conservation and management?
  

Source: Solent Science Conference, 21-22 September 1998

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