The Alde-Ore Estuary - Securing a Sustainable Future for Wildlife

Here is some interesting and relevant information found on the Alde-Ore LIFE website about the their project. It is definately worth taking a look at if you have the time as they play an important role in the management, evaluation and monitoring of the site http://www.lifealdeore.org/index.php?pid=1

Alde-Ore Future for Wildlife is a project helping to provide long term improvements to the management of National Trust Orford Ness and RSPB Havergate Island for birds and habitats of European importance.

With the support of the EU's LIFE+ programme, we are improving water management and reducing disturbance on this part of the Suffolk coast for the benefit of wildlife, habitats and landscape.

Orford Ness National Nature Reserve

An internationally important nature reserve, with a fascinating 20th-century military history.

Take a short boat trip to this wild and remote shingle spit, the largest in Europe. Follow trails through a stunning landscape and a history that will both delight and intrigue. Discover an internationally important nature reserve littered with debris and unusual, often forbidding, buildings from a sometimes disturbing past. Orford Ness is the best-preserved vegetated shingle site in the UK and holds 15% of the coastal vegetated shingle globally. Changing weather patterns have resulted in the marshes drying out and rectifying this is a main aim of the project. 

The National Trust works to preserve and protect the coastline, countryside and buildings of England, Wales and Northern Ireland. For ever, for everyone

What is a LIFE+ Nature Project?

LIFE+ Nature is one of the European Union's main funding programmes for the environment and its conservation. LIFE+ Nature projects are subject to a rigorous application process, detailed evaluation and have to be supported by DEFRA in the UK. LIFE+ funds innovative, best practice projects that contribute to the implementation of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives on Natura 2000 Network sites.

This is the third time that LIFE funding has been awarded to the Alde-Ore area, underlining its international importance for wildlife and the pro-active work for wildlife conservation undertaken by the National Trust (NT) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

What we have done on the lagoons and marshes?

A main aim of the project is to establish functional, efficient and sustainable systems of water management to maintain and improve the quality of the coastal lagoons and marshes in response to increasingly lower rainfall.  A network of new ditches, lagoons and water controls have been installed, and we continue to monitor species, water quality and levels to ensure these sites are fantastic places for wildlife.

With the work now complete we are entering a period of experimentation and recording to find the best water levels and management regime.

Protection of nesting birds

Most of the bird species on Havergate Island and Orford Ness nest on the ground. This makes them, their eggs and young, very exposed to predation by several different predators from foxes, weasels and stoats to other birds like Gulls and Grey Heron. However, on Havergate Island a more significant problem is the large population of brown rats which cause many losses to breeding Avocets and Terns. After detailed monitoring and research, and the production of an action plan, work is starting on the removal of brown rats in order to protect the nesting birds.

Why is Orford Ness so unusual and why are some of its habitats so vulnerable?

Orford Ness is the largest vegetated shingle spit in Europe and the only one featuring a cuspate foreland. The shingle habitats at Orford Ness host unusual, and some unique, combinations of species, of plants, invertebrates and lichens. The shingle habitat is exceptionally vulnerable to disturbance as its ridge and furrow structure has been formed in a very particular pattern over a long period of time and so cannot be easily re-formed if damaged by human activities. The National Trust has a legal obligation to protect this valuable natural resource

Our aim is to engage with local communities and visitors to assist us in maintaining the fragile balance between offering access to these inspiring places and the essential conservation of the habitats and wildlife.

What surveys of the wildlife are we carrying out?

The National Trust and RSPB carry out regular wildlife surveys on these two sites. The breeding and wintering bird life has been counted for many years, and this will be continued, in even more detail, throughout the project, so we can evaluate how the birdlife is responding to the conservation work we are undertaking.

We shall also survey the plants and invertebrates of the coastal lagoon habitats during the project, to see how the water management improvements affect this wildlife. The completed survey results can be found here.

An Exerpt from the Alde-Ore Future for Wildlife
Ecological Monitoring Report: Baseline 2010-11

The NT and RSPB have been jointly awarded a LIFE+ Nature grant to further improve the

management of Orford Ness and Havergate Island for birds and habitats that are priorities for

conservation across Europe.

The main aim of the project is to establish a functional, efficient and sustainable system of ditches,

water controls, pumps and sluices to enable long-term water management and control of the coastal

lagoons at Havergate Island and the marshes and lagoons at Orford Ness. The project also includes

the monitoring and protection of vulnerable vegetated shingle habitat on Orford Ness.

Target bird species include Redshank, Avocet, Ruff and Sandwich Tern, Spoonbill, Golden Plover and

Little Tern, and priority habitats are coastal lagoons, vegetated shingle and strandline plant

communities.

Equipment has been purchased to enable or assist the monitoring actions. Monitoring locations have

been related to the concrete actions of the project, to ensure meaningful data are recorded and

comparisons can be made as the project progresses. Meetings have been held between the project

staff, including nature conservation advisors of both the RSPB and NT, to agree the types and

methods of monitoring required for input into the scientific reports. Follow-up meetings have been

arranged to review the survey data recorded.

Baseline surveys have been carried out since the start of the project in April 2010, on bird numbers,

water levels, water quality (salinity), and invertebrates. Vegetation surveys will be undertaken in

summer 2011 on Orford Ness marshes prior to the concrete conservation actions. Both sites also have

bird, vegetation and invertebrate data going back for several years. These datasets will enable the

effectiveness of the conservation actions to be judged, through comparison between areas, and with

previous years.
 

1.1 Aim

To be able to evaluate the impact of the new and improved management systems on

the wildlife of European significance present at Orford Ness and Havergate Island.

1.2

Actions

ACTION E.2: Scientific monitoring and surveys of the project sites

Regular scientific monitoring will be carried out across project sites to investigate the effectiveness of

the various habitat management works and engagement activities within the project.

Baseline ecological surveys will be carried out in each of the sub-sites of the project area, in the first 6

months of the project. A main focus will be to monitor the invertebrates (biomass, species) of the

coastal lagoons where work is planned to be carried out in the future, such as revised water level

management, island and berm creation.

Monthly systematic bird surveys will be carried out on each site and sub-site, to provide population

data for Annex 1 and other key bird species, with site-specific density estimates with meaningful

confidence limits, to be able to demonstrate statistically significant habitat associations among the

focal bird assemblage, and to be able to evaluate the impact of management works.

Expected results

On each of the sites we would expect to be able to determine, statistically, the effectiveness and

success of the habitat management works in terms of numbers of the targeted Annex 1 bird species,

and the lagoon invertebrates. In addition, there will be a reduced impact by mammalian predators, and

disturbance, to the targeted breeding bird species.

Survey Results

2.1 Bird surveys

Baseline surveys of all of the bird species, including the target bird species, were carried out on

Havergate Island and Orford Ness marshes in summer 2010 and winter 2010-11, prior to the proposed

concrete conservation actions being undertaken. In addition, both sites have detailed bird survey data

going back for several years.

 

New Lagoons and Ditches

Photos

OTHER ARTICLES OF INTEREST FROM THEIR SITE AND BLOG..

Access to the southern end of the Spit

Nov

05

2012

Following a couple of letters in the East Anglian Daily Times, about the article that suggested the National Trust may wish to restrict access to Orford Ness, we'd like to clear up some of the misconceptions around how we look after this internationally important nature reserve.
Local people obviously have strong feelings about the way we look after this place, and have done so since we bought it from the MOD when they left over 20 years ago. We have already been in contact with many of them and would be very happy to discuss any concerns in the future but ultimately, we have a responsibility to the natural environment on this priceless site.
We have been carrying out surveys and monitoring both the natural history and access on Orford Ness since 1993 and are developing a significant record of the site. In addition, every six years or so the condition of each Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) unit within the site is reviewed by Natural England and our last review resulted in a condition of 'unfavourable and declining' in the southern end of the spit. This has been caused largely by people accessing the site in an unauthorised way and compounded by not then sticking to the one footpath and spreading out along the spit. We are required by law to safeguard the area from further damage and we are obliged by our conservation principles to try to stop the decline.
Balancing the needs of access and conservation has always been a delicate matter but we are committed to ensuring that access continues. That's why we held a community forum and invited as many users and interested parties as we could find and get hold of to discuss the issues Orford Ness faces. We do not have the resources or the wish to police the area to stop further damage caused by people landing here.
We need solutions and we want to involve people in finding them. Some people tell us they have been visiting the spit for 50 years, along with hundreds of other people who land by boat and have picnics, swim and walk in the main during the summer months.  Beach anglers take over and land on the river side of the spit to walk across to the seaward side from October to March. We are very happy for that to continue - but in a managed way and in a way where everyone takes responsibility for safeguarding the integrity of the site.
This year, apart from the substantial amounts of general rubbish left behind we had to remove three abandoned barbeques from this delicate area, and they could only have got there by boat. Would you leave a barbeque on Snowdon or Stonehenge? Why is this rarer habitat/landscape any less precious?
Unfortunately, although the area in question looks like any simple shingle beach it isn't.  It is a world-class nature reserve with some of the most important vegetated shingle habitat with amongst the best preserved shingle ridges than anywhere else in Europe, if not the world. Every step off the designated routes destroys this complex habitat and wildlife community and it is highly unlikely to ever come back.
Orford Ness has to be a jewel in the crown of the Suffolk coast and we need to work together to protect it.  We need everyone's help to keep it precious and special.


HERE IS A LINK TO SOME GOOD AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY OF THE SITE, WORKS, INTERVENTIONS AND CHANGES, WITH ANNOTATIONS http://www.lifealdeore.org/index.php?pid=214&blogid=131