The RSPB’s Mike Pilsworth provided some interesting insights in his excellent presentation to today’s annual conference in Hull of the Humber Nature Partnership.
For instance, he revealed that there is a group called the Cleethorpes Recreational Disturbance Group comprising representatives of North East Lincolnshire Council, RSPB, Natural England, Humber Nature Partnership and the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.
Its aim is to address disturbance to shoreline birds caused by dog-walkers, jetskiers, windsurfers. paddle-boarders and the like.
He also presented updates on the global importance of the Humber Estuary (165,000 overwintering and passage waders/ wildfowl) and on the Humber's last remaining breeding colony of little terns (29 breeding pairs this summer) at a site near Spurn.
Mike also spoke of the RSPB’s commitment to partnership working with other organisations, including industry, citing the creation of wader pools on land owned by Cemex.
The conference also heard from Mike’s RSPB colleague, Pete Short, who expressed misgivings that a recently-announced huge-scale lagoon project for Hull (
www.lagoonhull.co.uk
) risks having an adverse impact on birdlife if it reduces water levels at reserves such as Blacktoft Sands and Alkborough Flats.
Other important contributions to the conference, which focused on estuary management in an era of climate change, came from Paul Learoyd (chair of HNP and chief executive of Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust), Kishor Tailor (chief executive, Humber Local Enterprise Partnership), Tom Jeynes (sustainable development manager, ABP), (Alex Codd, planning manager, Hull City Council) and Prof Mike Elliott (Department of Biology and Marine Science,. University of Hull).
