Government's consultation on next Marine Conservation Zones

[oldharry]

He may be "winning" but not where it matters. He is exactly what you describe, but except for lazy journalists looking to fill space nobody that matters really takes much notice of him.

True, his attempts to corner Studland as a private swiming pool /aquarium have not gone down at all well either with the people who matter or local residenets..

 

[MarlynSpyke]

Seems more than a little harsh. I was careful to frame my comments beginning and end with a "thank you" to those leading on this, and my comments are nothing more than constructive criticism backed up with positive examples of how things could, in my opinion, be improved, and obviously I'm not alone on this one.
.

I must confess to using slightly stronger language than was called for, and for what it’s worth have edited the original to change the offending word. The fact is I was feeling a little exasperated (a) that the name issue was deflecting attention from what really matters, that boaters actively respond in numbers to the consultation, and (b) that in our view this is not a beauty contest, it’s a matter of evidence, rebuttal and hard argument put to a target audience of professionals.
Of course PR will make some difference, and BORG has also published rebuttals to Seahorse Trust claims aimed at the press and media. In fact after we published underwater videos of healthy flourishing eelgrass in the claimed seahorse zone, following a sustained campaign of challenging his misleading claims, NGM stopped claiming that the eelgrass was all gone of fragmented because of anchoring.
Here are some links to seahorse and other articles which might prove useful – publishing these will also help their Google visibility:
http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Poole-Seahorses.pdf
http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Seahorse-numbers-the-truth.pdf
http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Great-Seahorse-Deception.pdf
http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Comment-on-SHT-News.pdf
However, this is a bit of a side issue. The seahorses are not really in the frame as far as the consultation goes, the really key points are that there is loads of healthy eelgrass present in Studland Bay despite boats anchoring there for decades, there is no clear evidence that recreational vessels are actually reducing the health or extent of the eelgrass beds (it’s the seagrass beds that are the conservation objective, not individual plants, they can come and go but the beds continue), and that restrictions on mooring / anchoring are likely to cause losses to the local recreational marine economy which are far greater than stated in the consultation factsheet for the site.
Also, our thanks for the support expressed, may it be further expressed by engaging in the Public Consultation.

 

[oldharry]

IIRC the only report that actually tried to quantify the health of the eelgras in the anchorage area was the Seastar survey commissioned by Crown Estates. They used the standard shoots per sq metre indicatior used in many seagrass surveys. Studland came out above average, and there was insufficent difference for them to determine whether eelgrass in the VNAZ zone wasin any way better. They concluded very clearly there ws no measurable difference between eelgrass in the anchorage, and that in the no anchor control area.

Our own more limited investigation shows similar shoot count results 5 years on.