Saltmarshes
"Estuarine and coastal environment habitats deserve to be protected in their own right - and they repay us with carbon sequestration, reduced flood risk and benefits to water quality, fisheries and recreation. We need to change our thinking from past events to future ones. We need to move from a concept of protection to resilience."
Emma Howard Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency Coastal Future 2020,
Royal Geographical Society, London.
We have lost 70% of our Saltmarsh ecosystems in the past 100 years. The Wildfowl and Wetland Trust believe there needs to be 22,000 hectares restored around the UK coastline to compensate for this over the next 30 years.
In partnership with landowners and other relevant organisations, Earth Change and Land and Water are looking to deliver multiple Beneficial Reuse (BuDS) projects using the Saltmarsh Restoration Drag-box that will deliver the evidence grade research needed and pioneer new ways in which saltmarsh can be restored at scale, and intertidal areas enhanced.
In many areas the restored habitats will also contribute to protecting sea defences and sheltered harbours which are becoming more exposed. The evidence-based trials will show how restoration can be delivered at scale and the science-based studies which run in parallel will deliver the validated environmental codes necessary to access the credits that will subsize the green economy in the longer term.
