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What seems to have happened is that English Nature wanted to rank all the various activities listed as potentially damaging to the site in order of importance. Inevitably this has led to debate if only because what is important at Emsworth is probably insignificant at Hythe, and vice versa. If the list of activities that could cause damage or disturbance (as proposed by English Nature) is examined, it is easy to see that many (if not most) of them are already being managed by one Relevant Authority or another. The reason for management may be human safety rather than environmental protection, but the effect is that the environment is already being protected serendipitously.
It is not difficult to agree that all the activities should be managed. It is not too difficult to assign responsibility for management to one (or more) Relevant Authorities. It should be relatively easy for each Relevant Authority to describe the present management process, and to describe the surveillance data that they normally collect to indicate the level of activity (e.g. Number of moorings, number of commercial vessel movements, etc). If they are already being managed, then it is for English Nature to demonstrate a need for management change, preferably with evidence from their monitoring.
It is therefore a total mystery why this process has not begun, and why it is not being publicised. It seems that the Relevant Authorities have been content to have English Nature floundering about trying to prioritise things that do not need prioritising once the basic acceptance that management is necessary has been made
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