England to Get Slightly Smaller
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 10. 8.07
Part of the UK is going to be flooded in order to make a wildlife reserve, making my little island that little bit smaller. The area was drained 500 years ago by Dutch settlers though, so is simply returning to its natural state.
"Wallasea will become a wonderful coastal wetland full of wildlife in a unique and special landscape. We will be restoring habitats that were lost more than 400 years ago and preparing the land for sea level rise,” said Graham Wynne, RSPB chief executive, “This is land that was borrowed from the sea that now the sea is reclaiming."
The area, which is for the meantime part of Essex, is 1,800 acres, and mostly farmland. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds will break the sea defences built around Wallasea Island, creating a huge area of salt marsh. The project will cost £12 million, and is the largest such undertaking in Europe. The RSPB has approval for the plan, scheduled to start in two years, but must now raise the necessary funds.
"We will have a landscape of marshes, islands, lagoons and creeks, little more than 20 inches deep at high tide. Wallasea is one island now but was once five separate pieces of land. We will restore these ancient divisions and each new island will have its own tidal control," said Mark Dixon, project manager. ::The Guardian ::Picture Source
Wait, it was drained 5 HUNDRED years ago? And now they want to return it to its "natural" state?
What about all the wildlife and plant life that is now there that has adapted to its drained state in the previous 500 years?
While I'll agree that it probably shouldn't have been drained in the first place, that was 500 years ago!
Maybe they should just let this one go.
In America, we set aside our best shorefront for the Slot-Jockey Snowbird.
Wow CHS that is really a good point - i was reading this and thinking 'how wonderful - too bad here in America we don't do the same with some of the beuatiful land we've stripped bare' - but Nature is not static and surely in 500 years there is a whole new ecosystem there that will lose homes and food sources once this land is flooded.
@Rob: Hey, that sounds familiar. That's what Central American countries do with their best shorefront for Americans.
"my little island" ... referring to the U.K. I love it. Reminds me why I wish I were from an island nation.
It's My Island!
So that's even less land available for homes then? Granted this is already farmland, land is land. I would think this would somehow reflect real estate prices. I live in the US, but I do know that London is horribly expensive.