Natural Englandrespondsto freedom of information request about Studland.

[moomba]

But, as you have been advised, it is all too late for you to come in and tell Borg how to do it.

So, the deal is done-for better or for worse-your suggestion and advice is of no use at this late stage.

Then there was no reason to activate this post this is a forum

Dont accuse posters of bullying when they hit you between the eyes with these hard facts.

I play tennis as well and my facts stand up too please read some of your fellow posters threads and you will find some silly comments


The meaningful discussion is long over-you and your wife's input is of little use now.

please do not bring my wife into this if you have nothing really important to say[/B]

I am a great one for democracy. As a philosopher once said:- " I disagree with what you are saying, but I would fight to the death for your right to say it! "

then let me say it you contradict yourself here


I have no professional medical judgement-I am not a Doctor- but to accuse me of keyboard bullying from the post you took exeption to means, as far as I am concerned, that you are fragile-unless you get your view accepted.

To use the word fragile to underpin your belief I am mental unstable or physically unable what do you them mean by the word fragile I hve accepted my point of view just like Old Harry accepts his point of view therefore your philosophy is tainted or is old Harry Fragile as well , I suggest you take a deep breath before responding and count to 10

 

[moomba]

This looks like a good explanation from earlier in the thread;

It is worth pointing out that in the first-mentioned BORG paper we report that “a Google scholar search reveals that 1780 papers have been published with Zostera marina in the title. It appears that none, other than Collins et al 2010, provides evidence of anchor damage to Zostera marina beds”. I am still not aware of any published paper, other than the Collins one, reporting anchor damage to Zostera marina. Posidonia oceanica yes, but that is an entirely different matter.
Read more at http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthrea...uest-about-Studland/page8#rCZK6LecZ0cOTPR0.99

Yes Posidoina oceanica is a species predominantly found in the Mediterranean were there has been a lot of studies done on anchoring on these beds , it is worthwhile noting that these grasses are in the same Order: Alismatales but they they do have different aspects , one being that Zoestra does grow back faster and seems to put up with more abuse. something to look at

 

[moomba]

Qoting Old Harry, post 106:
Moomba will not have known that some of the papers he listed were authored by those same ‘experts’ who have caused us so much trouble and grief with their lies and attacks.

Unfortunately it has become clear that even NE was not squeaky clean in all this. They commissioned a report which you will not find in any of your libraries, though I still have a copy, and which apart from containing some major errors in calculation, which were spotted by Marlynspyke, was thrown out by Defra’s Geomatics Section because of the level of bias and inaccuracy. They too were trying to make evidence fit theory.

So if BORG is less than enthusiastic about accepting ‘expert opinion’ perhaps some of you will understand a little better now why, and why Moomba’s suggestions met with such a strong reaction.
]

Yes, Moomba’s posts were a bit like poking a hornet’s nest with a stick.

Even today, NE will not present actual evidence as to why they consider the Studland Bay eelgrass to be in “Unfavourable” condition. They use instead a desk-based “assessment”, a MarLIN-MarESA derived assessment which goes something like this:

Bottom fishing gear (eg scallop dredges) causes surface penetration of the seabed. Seagrass is badly damaged by bottom fishing gear and is very slow to recover. Leisure boat anchors cause penetration of the seabed. Therefore seagrass is badly damaged by leisure boat anchors and is very slow to recover. Leisure boats anchor in Studland Bay and so the seagrass is being badly damaged.

Work that one out if you can. Or if the absurdity is not obvious, substitute “child’s seaside spade” for leisure boat anchor.

NE did commission, in conjunction with the Crown estate, a proper dived survey of the eelgrass in Studland Bay, dated 2012, and we have used that in our technical submissions. It actually showed the seagrass to have similar characteristics to other seagrass beds in the region. Yet I discovered today that that report, which was at https://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/me...and Bay second seagrass monitoring report.pdf
- BREAKING NEWS - has been taken down, and neither can it be found by Google search (FOI request on this has been submitted). So the one thorough formal survey, which happens to show the seagrass in the anchoring area in the Bay to be in reasonably good condition, has been removed from circulation! We wonder why …………

Neither NE nor Defra have commissioned a more recent survey of the seagrass condition at this controversial site – again, why? we ask.

Add to this the biased reporting and faulty measurement in the MAIAA report using aerial photos of the Bay, and the false claims by an ecologist that the seagrass was too sparse to support a seahorse, it is no wonder that we have no confidence in the “marine science” being used in the area, and I certainly would not wish to have been trained in the methods and practices they use.

Ok to ask just a normal question and get back on track and avoiding totally conflict, why do you think all these organisations want to turn this into a MCZ if you can work out that mandate, then you can work backwards, the UK government have a duty of care to protect marine habitats and fauna by EU directives , like they have to reduce carbon pollution , so is this a case of it is easier to blame the boaters , or the bay meets certain criteria but no studies have been done to substantiate this ,
Does ENH have an agenda and will buy up the crown estate land and putt in Eco moorings and charge a fortune ,
I have stated before I am for freedom of access , and if there is skulduggery going on , I would be the first to help , but it is difficult to read between all the lines here the science is flakey , I have never disputed this , but BORGS was as well (another story)
As a member of the Planet I will always agree to be sustainable but not if that means some one is getting rich because of it

 

[rotrax]

To use the word fragile to underpin your belief I am mental unstable or physically unable what do you them mean by the word fragile I hve accepted my point of view just like Old Harry accepts his point of view therefore your philosophy is tainted or is old Harry Fragile as well , I suggest you take a deep breath before responding and count to 10

Please explain in a way that I can understand the points you are trying to make, because I am at a loss.

You accused me of keyboard bullying. I dont believe I was bullying-it was never my intention.

I stated that if you thought I was bullying, you must be fragile. Where do you get the idea that I believe you to be mentally unstable or physically unable from that? I have no knowlege of you at all, apart from your posts on these pages.

Your demeanour, however, in this matter perhaps throws a little light on you as a person.

To be clear, you are late to this debate, far too late to have any effect on the outcome.

As far as I am aware, all I did was point this out to you.......................................

PS-I counted 20 before posting this, after a number of deep breaths!

 

[oldharry]

Moomba to answer an earlier comment: I do not see assassins or shadows in every corner. I am referring to direct personal and highly abusive remarks aimed at both marlynspyke and myself over an extended period from some of these squeaky clean experts you are so keen to back. Their science, read by many on this forum is rubbish, contains huge numbers of factual errors, wild assumptions and in not a few instances libellous and slanderous statements. You do not seem to realise that I have for a number of years faced these people across the table in meetings, have tried to correspond with them by phone and email to try to find some sort of common ground. Marlynspyke too has received much similar personal abuse. However they are determined to pick a fight, and will not discuss anything, simply trying to dictate to us what will happen. This is where it started in 2008, and it is still going on. That would be managable, but they resort top=direct personal attack, seeking to discredit us personally ina most savage and uncivilised way. Several times I could well have taken the matter further had Ichosen. Few even here realsise the level of personal attack we BORG people have endured.

I resent too the suggestion that BORG and I are in any way anti MCZ or conservation. For the record I spent a great deal of time working directly with NE as a stakeholder in the setting up stages looking at MCZ proposals in the Western Channel, many of which are now in place and operating, and I am proud of the work I have done in support of them.

When we examined the Studland proposal, we made a number of modifications which have been incorporated in the current proposal. We did warn NE that Studland was a top Holiday spot (it receives the highest number of visitors of any location in Purbeck, and that it would need site specific data to support any restricitive management.

NE responded by commissioning a report on the eelgrass in the Bay. Unfortunately the experts they used got it so badly wrong that after Marlynspyke queried certain specific elements, DEFRA reviewed it and rejected it for the reasons I gave. NE subsequently withdrew it for 're-writing'. Now 5 years on it has still not been published, leaving us with nothing but opinions.

In the Solent, they dropped another large eelgrass bed from the recommendations, in Osborne Bay, for the same reasons we want them to drop Studland. It is a key Solent anchorage, but we maintain, less important than Studland.

We simply want them to take another objective look at the eelgrass and tell us how serious the anchoring impact is here. If there proves to be an serious issue, then we will support any reasonable restrictions and management. But without that evidence, and with a great deal of wider scientific literature suggesting that eelgrass survives, and possibly even benefits from diturbance, though that is controversial, alongside the ambitions of certain voluntary groups who want to effectively take over and ensure boats remain out we must continue to ask for site specific information before we can agree to costly and intrusive restricitive management of visitors.



A compromise CAN be reached I am sure that will meet conservation objectives without disrutping things too much, but the evidence as we see it suggests that existing legislation provides all the necessary protection, and further legislation is undesireable and unnecessary.. Finding that compromise has been my aim throughout. I wish I could say the same about some of the more ambitious conservation teams who want to get their hands on this beautiful place. Most readers here know very well what I mean!

 

[Blue Sunray]

Moomba, straight question. Do either you or your wife now, or have you in the past, worked with or for DEFRA and/or NE?

 

[MarlynSpyke]

Yes Posidoina oceanica is a species predominantly found in the Mediterranean were there has been a lot of studies done on anchoring on these beds , it is worthwhile noting that these grasses are in the same Order: Alismatales but they they do have different aspects , one being that Zoestra does grow back faster and seems to put up with more abuse. something to look at

Here we go again. Actually I have looked at it. Moomba, you are SIX YEARS off the pace. In November 2012 I stood up in front of of some of these marine science "experts" you seem to admire, including Ken Collins and Neil Garrick Maidment, and explained how P. oceanica differs from Z. marina in 7 different specific ways when it comes to resilience (which, for the avoidance of doubt, means the ability to recover from from an impact or stress event). They were apparently trying to fool us that because P. oceanica had been shown to be vulnerable to anchor damage, then Z. marina must be too. (Further note to avoid going round the loop yet again, when I say vulnerable I am talking about the combination of resistance and resilience, see my paper at http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Eelgrass-recolonisation.pdf ). Anyway, that was on one of 38 Powerpoint slides I used in a wide-ranging presentation to the great and the good, and if you want to make a meaningful contribution you really ought to take the trouble to read it, at http://boatownersresponse.org.uk/Workshop_presentation7.pdf . But I am not going to enter further argument around that presentation, I've been there, done that, and in fact the marine science "establishment" who were present found little they could oppose in it. And a certain amount to embarrass them.

Anyway, the real reason I have come back into this thread is to refer back to the original point in Old Harry's post (no. 1).

A formal FOI requesthas been made to NE asking for the basis of their assessment that Studland eelgrass requires 'recovery', the official term in the reports for a feature that is degraded and needs active management to restore it.

A !engthy reply was received which revealed two things:

Firstly the assessment was based solely on 'expert opinion' and not on actual observation or assessment. In brief, this means that they know that seagrass is vulnerable to anchoring, which it is. People anchor ometimes 'quite intensively'. Therefore seagrass in the Bay must be degraded, so recovery must be required....

I simply want to underline a point I made in post 120. We, BORG, are critical of the fact that Natural England are using an assessment without any actual evidence to pronounce on the condition of the eelgrass in Studland Bay. There is however some evidence, perhaps I should say was. This was a full-blown dived survey conducted over 2 years to study diffences between a voluntary no-anchor zone and a controlled zone. As we, BORG, reported at the time,

"The key finding in a detailed 70-page scientific report released on 3rd July 2012 is that

“Currently, based on the quantitative data collected over two years, there is no consistent evidence of differences in seagrass health between the VNAZ and CTZ” (note: VNAZ is the Voluntary No Anchor Zone, and CTZ the Control Zone, where anchoring carried on as usual).

– and – “There is therefore no consistent evidence of boat anchoring impacting the seagrass habitat at Studland Bay.” "

The survey also reported on the condition of the eelgrass, as we have noted:

"The study carried out by Seastar Survey Ltd (1) conducted methodical dived surveys in the central anchoring
area over a two year period. In October 2011, that area was found to have dense eelgrass at 55%
coverage with an average shoot density of 208 shoots per sq metre, which the report said was “typical for
the wider Weymouth and Portland area”. Full details of the observations are given in the Dive Logs in the
Appendix of that report. It should be noted that the surveys were carried out in the months of April and
September or October, when annual leaf-shed means the eelgrass would not have its full summer
complement of leaves."

So evidence does exist which informs on the condition of the eelgrass, and that evidence also challenges the very basis of NE's Assessment, which depends on a MarLIN MarESA paper assessment of eelgrass vulnerability.

That report, commissioned jointly by NE and the Crown Estate, has now been taken down from the Crown Estate website, and is not found when searched for by Google. It is very disturbing that actual evidence should have been removed from public scrutiny. It could perhaps be a mistake, but we have lodged a Freedom of Information request asking why it has been removed, and will publish the reply we receive.