Vast new reserve to be created in Essex by flooding Wallasea island.

By Sonia Bhatti.

October 2007. A restoration project to create one of Europe’s largest coastal wetlands is underway in a bid to help wildlife adapt to the increasing climate change. Wallasea Island in south-east Essex was home to King Canute, whose battle against the English King, Edmund Ironside in 1016 has left its imprint in the form of pre-battle camp trenches in Canewdon. The Wallasea Island Wild Coast Project will, with the aid of tidal waters, see the creation of several hundred acres of mudflats, salt marsh and creeks which will be a paradise for wildlife.

The £12 million scheme is set to lure several new species of birds, including the spoonbill, which as not nested in the UK for over 400 hundred years. It is hoped that other unusual visitors such as Kentish Plovers, black-winged Stilts lapwings, avocet, dunlin and redshank will thrive in the new environment. Otters, saltwater fish and specialist plant life are also among the possible inhabitants which the reserve hopes to attract.

Wallasea was something of a wildlife haven 500 years ago but was re-claimed for farming. Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPB, said: ‘Wallasea will become a wonderful coastal wetland full of wildlife in a unique and special landscape. It will be a supermarket for birds, create nursery grounds for fish and be a true wilderness that people can visit, savour and enjoy. We will be restoring habitats that were lost more than 400 years ago and preparing the land for sea level rise. This is land that was borrowed from the sea that now the sea is re-claiming. Our project will make a major contribution to efforts to help wildlife adapt to the serious impacts of climate change.’

One of the most costly and ambitious schemes so far, RSPB’s renovation of the island’s wetlands will also result in the largest ‘tidal-exchange’ projects the U.K. has ever seen as well as the most crucial. Project Manager Mark Dixon said: ‘Many birds will starve if we don’t restore Wallasea. Fish are under incredible pressure too, not just because of overfishing but because of the loss of their salt marsh nurseries as well. Wallasea is only ten miles from London and once the work is done, it will be a breathing space for those living there now and for their children in the future.’ Wetland restoration got underway last year with Defra’s breaching of the 280 acre sea walls on the northern edge of the island. Now safely under RSPB’s wing, that land will lie adjacent to the Society’s new project and in turn provide a six-fold increase of area of wetland on Wallasea.

The scheme could not have come sooner as the rise in sea levels over the past few years have resulted in salt marshes and mudflats disappearing at a rate of 100 hectares a year. These statistics have led to the government setting a combined target for the recreation of these dying habitats, of 3,600 hectares by 2015.

In addition to Wallasea, the RSPB has several new reserves en route to counter the effects of sea level rise such as Hesketh Out Marsh on the southern banks of the Ribble Estuary and Freiston Shore. These projects will significantly contribute to the government’s salt marsh creation target and help encourage the ever-burgeoning wildlife of the U.K.

Courtesy of the RSPB