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The Trust’s Approach
The Trust will take a long-term and strategic approach to the promotion of its interests in the coastal zone including the marine environment. The Trust aspires to deliver Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) within its site management and its advocacy, at local, regional and national levels. The Trust’s decision-making process will be based on:
- Recognising social, cultural, historic, economic and environmental assets
- Understanding the processes that affect those assets and the scales at which they operate
- Delivering legal responsibilities and duty of care to others
- Assessing the vulnerabilities and the risks
- Identifying the options
- Involving the local community and other stakeholders in the decision-making process
- Finding a sustainable way forward
- Ensuring sufficient resources are available
- Communicating the way forward and demonstrating the benefits of the agreed approach
- Carrying out the works
- Recording what has been done
- Reviewing in the light of outcomes
The Trust has considerable interests in the marine environment, including Marine Nature Reserves such as Lundy and Strangford Lough.
Our coastal land management interests and the marine environment are connected, e.g. marine issues that impact on the coastal zone (e.g. oil pollution), marine development (e.g. offshore wind turbines), and decline of marine species upon which terrestrial species depend (e.g. sand eels); likewise land management issues that impact on the marine environment, e.g. pollution from land, erosion, recreation etc.
We will seek new marine legislation which extends protected areas to the marine environment and supports marine spatial planning.
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Our Management Principles
1. The Trust accepts that the coast is dynamic and changing and will work with the natural processes of coastal erosion and accretion wherever possible.
2. The Trust will take a long-term view and will adopt or support flexible management solutions which can enable, or adapt to, the processes of coastal change.
3. The Trust will plan in the context of projected sea level rise and will favour coastal realignment wherever this can reasonably be accommodated.
4. The Trust will only support interference with natural coastal processes where it believes there is an overriding benefit to society in social, economic or environmental terms. This will usually be ‘buying some time’ in order for a longer-term adaptive solution to be negotiated with other parties.
5. Valued habitats and species of the coastal zone will be conserved and enhanced as far as practicable, accepting that they will develop or adapt in response to coastal, oceanic and climate change. The Trust accepts that some habitats and species will be lost or replaced through natural processes and we will attempt substitution of losses elsewhere. The relationship between terrestrial, intertidal and marine species and ecosystems will be fundamental to the Trust’s management of and policies for the coastal zone.
6. Valued cultural features in the coastal zone will be conserved and enhanced as far as practicable, whilst not necessarily seeking to protect them indefinitely. The Trust will ensure such features are properly recorded before they are lost or will consider relocation if that can be justified. The relationship between landscape and seascape and the full meaning of the maritime historic environment will be fundamental to the Trust’s management.
7. The Trust will actively promote public access to the coastal zone, subject to conservation and safety considerations, in order to provide public enjoyment, recreational opportunities and to develop understanding of the coast and marine environments.
8. Coastal management decisions often impact beyond their immediate location. The Trust will work with other managers, organisations and communities to share experience and knowledge, to secure beneficial outcomes, to promote solutions on the basis of our experience, and to ensure a shared understanding is achieved.
9. The Trust will only support development in the coastal zone which has taken proper account of coastal change and sea level rise as well as environmental, cultural and landscape considerations. The Trust will contribute to components of the terrestrial and marine spatial planning systems to ensure its interests are fully reflected in plans and policies.
10. The Trust will consider the acquisition of land and property where it is the best option to support these principles. This can include land on the present coast, land to be managed as future coast, land in intertidal areas and land as seabed - as freehold or leasehold.
March 2006
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