Nature reserve surrendered to rising seas

A major nature reserve is to become one of the first casualties of the rising seas around Britain.

Part of Titchwell Marsh, a favourite spot for birdwatchers on the north Norfolk coast, is to be sacrificed to the waves to save the rest of the site from destruction.

The site, owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, has seen its sea defences starting to give way after years of coastal erosion, exacerbated by global sea level rises, according to Dr Mark Avery, the RSPB's Director of Conservation.

The charity has decided to undertake a "managed retreat" and rebuild defences more securely inland – meaning that a substantial portion of the reserve, currently brackish marsh and sheltered from the sea, will become tidal marsh and flooded twice a day.

The surrender to the sea comes ahead of a National Trust report this week that will warn that 10 of the UK's most famous landmarks will be dramatically altered by coastal erosion. They include St Michael's Mount off Cornwall, Studland beach in Dorset, and the eighteenth-century Welsh village, Porthdinllaen.

Last week, Lord Smith of Finsbury, chair of the Environment Agency, revealed to The Independent that stretches of the coastline were doomed.

Visited by about 90,000 people a year, Titchwell is home to rare species such as bitterns, avocets, bearded tits and marsh harriers, and in spring and autumn hosts migrating wading birds such as ruffs and curlew sandpipers. But coastal erosion has put the reserve's mixture of brackish and freshwater marshes and reedbeds at risk of inundation, as the sea walls protecting the northerly part of the site are being undercut.

Were they to give way, a saltwater flood of the habitats behind would severely damage them – for example, wiping rudd, the fish which is the main prey for bittern.

"The erosion has been going on for years but it is being accelerated by sea level rise, so we have to act earlier than we would have had to," said Dr Avery.

Sea levels are rising because of climate change. The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates sea levels are rising at a rate of about 3.1 millimetres per year.

The RSPB's £1.5m plan involves an earth bank sea wall 200 yards inland. The alternative would have been concrete defences, inappropriate for a wildlife site.

"It's about balancing the interests of the site and finding the most sensible solution ," said the RSPB's Helen Deavin, project manager of the scheme. "We've got to bear in mind the impacts of climate change such as increased storminess."

The scheme should protect the reserve for 50 years.

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