Studland - MMO Management protocols for the MCZ in place from 17th December

[oldharry]

Swithch off the AIS and scrape along the bottom with something to pull it all up. Analogous to a developer cutting down nice trees before putting in the planning application where a TPO might have then been put in place first.

Not as easy as that: NE will want to reseed the destroyed bed, using local funding and volunteers. Then you have public opinion against you as well. See Cawsand Bay in Devon, another popular anchorage taken over like Studland.

The fact all the moorings are privately owned makes no difference. All the Studland moorings are private, manyt having 'grandfather mooring rights' becaus eof the length of time they have been there. It doesnt matter who owns the seabed, MMO still have jurisdiction over any 'deposits' on the seabed. Its quite low on their agenda but eventually any tidal mooring not already administered by a Statutory Harbour Authority' (which has a clear legal definitiuon, not just voluntary local boatmens associations, clubs or boatyards organising themselves) will have to be registered with MMO under the 'Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009'.

The claim that Eelgrass 'could' grow there if there werent moorings is entirely spurious: Studland has been a popular mooring and anchorage area with many moorings since WW1. In 1955 there was about 100 sq m of eelgrass. It has since grown right through the moorings and anchorage area to a total of 96 hectares in soite of 60+ years of much heavier use than your fixed moorings. Look at the BORG website for aerial pohtographs showing the way it established and spread.

But you are fighting cotton wool here: if the NE 'expert opinion' states that it 'should have developed, and the boats stopped it, then that is what has happened. there is no need for evidence, expert opinion is more important than facts. Any report, not just from locals who really do know what is happening from daily observation or from independent professional surveys is dismissed if it does not accord with the NE 'experts' behind their desks, even if supported by in depth data.

Black is in actual fact white if expert opinion says it is, and its only us non experts who cant see it....

 

[oldharry]

Eel grass in Morecambe bay? I'd have thought it far too turbid.

Very good point: sea grass needs reasonably clear water as it depends on sunlight to stimulate photsynthesis to survive. The effect of even moderate turbidity is invariably seriously damaging.

 

[robertj]

Follow the money and you’ll find the problem.
has Cawsand now in the eelgrass band or jennycliff on the other side?

 

[Matador]

Follow the money and you’ll find the problem.
has Cawsand now in the eelgrass band or jennycl

Follow the money and you’ll find the problem.
has Cawsand now in the eelgrass band or jennycliff on the other side?

The VNAZ at Jennycliff was set up last year, I can't see anything on the QHM Plymouth website about anchoring restrictions at Cawsands. We were there last summer along with 50+ other boats. Who knows what 'they' are up to.

 

[Concerto]

Very good point: sea grass needs reasonably clear water as it depends on sunlight to stimulate photsynthesis to survive. The effect of even moderate turbidity is invariably seriously damaging.

Does eel grass grow in drying areas? If the mooring owners can walk to the mooring to change the riser, meaning there is little or no water twice a day. Surely it cannot be a suitable environment for eel grass to grow.

 

[SteveA]

Does eel grass grow in drying areas? If the mooring owners can walk to the mooring to change the riser, meaning there is little or no water twice a day. Surely it cannot be a suitable environment for eel grass to grow.

Yes it does! The area I am talking about is a bay that dries to 6m and more. Anyone interested in the NE report on this can find it at NERR103 which is the report on the Zostera beds of Roa Island and Foulney Island published in Nov '21.

 

[doug748]

Yes it does! The area I am talking about is a bay that dries to 6m and more. Anyone interested in the NE report on this can find it at NERR103 which is the report on the Zostera beds of Roa Island and Foulney Island published in Nov '21.

Note that the Zostera beds studied in the report is not of Zostera Marina which generally speaking likes depths of between 2 and 8 metres. This is critical, all of the comments on these pages are specifically related to Marina.

Seems to me that the report has not identified any actual damage to growth but only that: fragmentation may (according to their cited study) occur around moorings and the need to "provide information to boat owners".

There are cases where studies, like this report, find that seagrass beds are in good or favourable condition and than are cited, illogically, as reasons for subsequent drastic action. Keep this in mind,

You will have to look carefully at other studies specifically aimed at the species identified.


.

 

[oldharry]

In Studland this has been the argument all along: anchoring and mooring MAY cause fragmentation. So the precautionary principal applies. If there is a risk of damage it must be mitigated and where there is currently good growth, steps must be taken to maintain it.

There is no evidence for potential fragmentation. Every species specific study Marlynspyke and I could find worldwide describes a highly resilient growth, highly resistant to even severe abrasion, damage and disturbance. Recovery even from catastrophic events such as red tides are reported as rapid and complete. Studies of abrasion rsistance, where squares were deliberately ripped out of a bed showed remarkably rapid recovery. The full library is listed on the BORG website.

The difficulty is that Seagrass generically is fragile, slow growing and easily detroyed. Posidona oceanica which is widespread in the Med for example can take many years to recover from even minor abrasion, and certainly does need protection.

However, NE arev enitrely justified in expressing caution. In ALL their reports they refer generically to Seagrass, and ar NEVER species specific. So Seagrass IS categorised as 'highly vulnerable' and needs to be protected. Never mind that the species found universally in northern waters is tougher and very different - it's still seagrass, and is therefore at risk of fragmentation and destabilisation if people anchor and moor in it.

 

[Seven Spades]

Anchoring in Studland is like sticking a pin in a football field And does about the same amount of “damage”

 

[chrishscorp]

Natural England are getting incredibly big for their boots. In a planning application for a 68 bed care home in Stubbington, Fareham they insisted the Council ban the keeping of cars by residents because they may wish to visit the New Forest which would disturb it..... no its not the 1st April, link below.

Fareham care home residents banned from keeping a car in case they drive to New Forest | The News (portsmouth.co.uk)

 

[oldharry]

Anchoring in Studland is like sticking a pin in a football field And does about the same amount of “damage”

There is an untested observation in several eelgrass research papers we found, that disturbance actually stimulates growth. Every gardener knows how quickly daisies and dandelions re-appear after mowing the lawn!

 

[Seven Spades]

Well if you watch this lecture ( I have started it at tyhe right point about desertification) it is a brilliant example of how the accecdemics got it wrong by trying to "protect" the land whereas the best way to preserve it was to disturb it. I am slighty persuaded that this is what has happened by Studland, but you have to bare in mind that Eel Grass has spread to areas where prople do not anchor so the case is not proven.

 

[oldharry]

Agreed, the case for propagation by disturbance is purely anecdotal, based on observations made during research on eelgrass. It was not within the scope of the research that was being done so was not followed through. But iirc at least 2 if not 3 researchers commented on apparently speedier propagation following disturbance.

Conservation history is littered with examples of attempts to modify the environment which have gone seriously wrong. In Australia a no take conservation was set up to rpotect a colony of rare seahorses. Unfortunately the stock of fish that fed on them also grew significantly because they were no longer being caught, and ate up all the seahorses.....!

The view that all anthropomorphic influence is detrimental can cause untold damage after cenbturied of interaction. I strongly suspect that history will show a similar deterioration in Studland. Man and nature have co-existed there for centuries, dropping anchors large and small there. A large part of the bay is covered in healthy eelgrass - concentrated particularly where we have been anchoring for nearly a century. Only History will tell.

We interfere with existing natural balances at our peril if we do not fully understand the hugely complex forces involved, and of which man is part. That cuts both ways of course: the massive increase in sewage and agricualtural nitrate run off is seriously affecting large parts of our coastline too.

Studland has a major nitrates pollution problem, with one of the highest nitrate levels in UK waters (Unwin and Jones, 2016 -17). This is a huge and well documented threat to eelgrass, with potentially serious adverse effects on Zostera Marina, which have aleady been recorded there. I have seen it myself. But anchoring is clearly identified as the only significant threat to the eelgrass beds in the NE reports! But we cannot find any evidence of the 'damage' it is said to be causing to the integrity of the eelgrass meadows, although we have looked right across the central part of the anchorage.

 

[oldharry]

I just watched the video, Seven Spades: impressive if he has got it right. His presentation is pretty convincing as its stands: but on examination, his science slips back into the same oversimplified rationalisation used by people like NGM which basically says 'I have seen it , therefore it is. Proof is not needed' Like Savory NGM produces lots of 'before and after' pictures, which are actually taken totally out of context. NGM looks at a very brief timeframe, and says in 2008 there were 40 seahorses. By 2013 there were only 4. They had disappeared according to NGM because their habitat had been destroyed by boats dropping anchors all over the place.

The same thing happened post lockdown one when a group of seahorses made their appearance during lockdown. Come July and release from restricyions, boats turned up en masse. NGM then discovered, so had the seahorses. Point proved! He shouted proudly in press and media.

No. not quite. At the end of June a film team came into the Bay and spent many days filming them at close quarters. THAT was when they left. Before the boats even arrived. Savory makes the same mistake. HIS intervention 'caused the recovery of these areas'. Some of the African regions he claimed to have re-wilded with his cattle had in fact been the subject of an intensive recovery programmes anyway befroe he arrived.

In Studland we have just the same issue: there were 40 seahorses in 2008. That was after the boating boom of the late 90's and early 2000's when hundreds of boats had been anchoring regularly in the Bay. If boats did so much damage WHY were there so many seahorses present after 45 years intensive use as an anchorage? Why had the eelgrass meadows more than trebled in size during that period of unrestricted boating access? The reply? There's no evidence that was so? I produced a picture with nearly 400 boats at anchor in the Bay in 2000. 'Ah yes that was a one off.... In actual fact following the 2008 financial crisis, boat usage fell off, and both marina and mooring contractors found themselves short of customers. Where there had been lengthy waiting lists, occupancy fell right off so that berths were having to be advertised to find anyone to fill them. Visitor numbers dropped significantly in Studland, too except at peak times, according to locals.

I would love to think that Savory has found the key to dealing with the massive issues that face the planet, but I remain unconvinced. Further so when I read elsewhere that his experiments using cattle have NOT produced the same results elsewhere. When asked for scientific evidence of his theories, Savory, like NGM just puts up a smoke screen and says it 'cannot be replicated'.

Sorry. but after 12 years living with this sort of spin, I am afraid I find looking more closely at what Savory says it all sounds horribly familiar.

 

[penfold]

If it can't be replicated it's not science, it's religion.

 

[Concerto]

Want to knock Natural England further, they have no electric vehicles!

Natural England 'failing to set a good eco example' by running diesel vans fleet

 

[Babylon]

Just to say that what has happened at Studland Bay is part of a broader picture negatively impacting a range of relatively harmless pastimes, involving Natural England and other authorities as well.

My other interest is building and flying radio-controlled gliders, both slope and thermal soaring, not intrusive drones nor noisy powered model aircraft (which typically fly from private fields etc), just silent-flight gliding which is as close to nature as one can get. These activities have recently also come under attack in certain locations, e.g.:

Dartmoor Model Gliding Ban

St Agnes Head Slope Soaring Ban

A quick internet search also reveals banning proposals on model flying in the New Forest (even at an 80 year old club site) all based upon the disturbance to ground-nesting birds argument, etc.

I'm all for a clean, green environment and supporting nature where it is excessively threatened, whilst maintaining a balance between competing interests and activities, but I fear that there has arisen an aggressively ideological movement which in its virtue-seeking purity has jettisoned proportionality and casts ordinary hobbyists (sailors, model glider enthusiasts, campers, cyclists, etc) as the enemy.

 

[Reality61]

I believe that th MMO who are responsable for the VNAZ have been doing a daily boat count of the area. This will impact us all as many are continuing to anchor in the wrong place. This will of course come to a head probably mid May when there will be a meeting with stakeholders to discuss the implementation of phase 2 for June for tthe more used anchorage towards Old harry. These boat counts will then be used against us and the MMO will probably concider the statutory route with heavy fines, there is a belief that it is not policed, maybe not literally but numbers are being noted and this will cause boaters a problem long term.
There is also talk of the MMO having drop in sessions at various yacht clubs where anyone can go and ask questions about the proposed VNAZ.

However the science part whether we like it or not has been proven(2016) and is now not refutable that ship has well and trully sailed. We need to get better mooring coverage and somehow find funding for it to be a reality !!! going forward with someone NE or crown estates, RYA but this will have some cost, if we want moorings there will be fees I suspect ! So yet again boating may be seen as a cash cow, in the med a 12m boat is 30 euros it wont be that here !!!

 

[penfold]

What bloody science? Nothing has been proven other than the dunderheaded attitude of NE and associated agencies to anyone who tries to reason with them or present contrary evidence. "Not invented here". It's terrifying stuff that govt today is increasingly populated by ideologues immune to reason.

 

[oldharry]

+++1 Penfold. Very little science was used to bring about the MCZ. Well over 80% of he NE recommendations is based on 'Expert Opinion' coupled with overapplication of the Precautionary principle. Expert opinion in turn was based on study of selected research documents, ignoring the fact that Z Marina has many well documented atypical characteristics.

Interested to hear NE are at it elsewhere, thank you Babylon. I had come across this in other fields too. Limitibg access to public spaces on the grounds of possible but unproven disturbance of bird life. A beach closed because a rarely seen microscopically small snail was found there. Perhaps theres another reason why they are so rarely seen?

Seahorses in Uk, a rare species? Any S Coast fisherman will laugh in your face at the suggestion they are rare. They largely live in deeper water further out where researchers cant be bothered to go. Too cold, too risky. They remain unreported because the fishermen know NE will immediately close their fishing grounds and deprive them of their livelihood because they are a 'protected species'