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As the dawn mist clears at Newtown, there is a cacophony of bird sound, especially in the winter when numerous migrating birds have taken up residence. The Brent Geese form into vast aerial armadas to set off raiding the fields across Hampshire, while others such as godwits, curlews, and various types of gull patrol the shoreline poking around in the mud. There are terns fishing, and even the occasional egret patrolling the shoreline.
Even in the Solent, the same wonderful parade of wildlife can be seen in Chichester, Langstone, or Keyhaven. All round the coast, whether it is the Humber, East Anglia, the West Country, Wales, Ireland or Scotland, bays and estuaries offer their own numerous special wildlife havens.
For many of us, these sights are an important part of our sailing. So our first instinct is to support efforts by wildlife organisations such as Worldwide Fund for Nature, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and local wildlife trusts to seek protection of such wildlife and the habitats they need. Government, at both UK and European level has responded by introducing a variety of coastal designations. These not only protect wildlife. There are designations for bathing water, landscape, national parks, heritage coast, shellfish protection, and so on. In total there are 44 different kinds of designations defined in the annex to a report prepared for government examining how to define yet another area, the Marine Environmental High Risk Area (MEHRA) called for by Lord Donaldson of Lymington in his report following the Sea Empress accident.
Thereby hangs a tale. Environmental groups do not see protection of the environment in terms of exposure to risk, but solely in terms of creating exclusivity for environmental purpose. They see use of the marine environment as a threat, including yachting – and especially commercial fishing. Anchoring is seen as disturbance of the benthic community (the small animals that live in the mud and silt) and as such an attack on the bottom of the food chain. Our masts are seen as intrusion into the sight lines and flight paths of birds; motorboat wash and noise, they say, threatens some species. TBT was banned because it was crippling certain types of shellfish. Now noises are being made about the build up of copper and zinc from new antifouling paints and anodes. The instinct of the committed environmentalist, the True Believer, is to ban, regulate, fine, or confiscate anyone intruding on designated areas.
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