UK: Deal to save coastal wetlands
Copyright 2001 BBC News
September 5, 2001
By the BBC's Environment Correspondent Tim Hirsch.
An agreement to help save Britain's disappearing coastal wetlands is due to be signed on Thursday.
The deal, involving the Environment Agency, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) and wildlife groups, aims to halt the decline of salt marshes, which act as vital habitats and provide natural flood defences.
Conservationists are alarmed at the decline of the tidal wetlands along low-lying coastal areas, especially in East Anglia.
A quarter of Essex's salt marshes have disappeared in the past 25 years, threatening a unique range of plants and animals.
The problem has been caused by a combination of rising sea levels and the use of artificial flood barriers to protect farmland.
Thursday's agreement will encourage schemes including one at Abbot's Hall Farm where land bought up by the Essex Wildlife Trust has been flooded to create 200 acres of marshes.
Other schemes being considered involve the use of waste material from the dredging of navigation channels to help salt marshes form.
Simon Lyster, of The Wildlife Trusts partnership, said: "By working with nature, we can breathe life back into the UK's degraded coastal habitat.
"Coastal wetlands are among the most important and threatened habitats in the country".