Protect Our Shores

Izzy: Hello, and welcome to the Carbon Copy Podcast with me, Isabelle Sparrow. 

Brad: And me, Bradley Ingham. 

Izzy: We’re back with another episode in our series, Do Something Bigger, where we’re exploring ways to create meaningful collaborative change for climate and nature, where you live or work. Over the course of 2025, we’re exploring 25 different actions that can make a difference to climate and nature. So if today’s theme isn’t your thing, come back next time for something that might be.  

Brad: Today’s episode is called Protect Our Shores. We’re making waves this week as we dive into the deep end of marine conservation in the UK. 

Izzy: That’s right, we’re exploring how to keep our coasts afloat in the face of climate and ecological challenges. We’ll be hearing from two inspiring guests who are working to protect our marine ecosystems and keep our shores thriving. And we’ll also be discussing our thoughts on the new David Attenborough film, Ocean, and what we can do in our communities to help. But before we dive into all of this, let’s set the scene. The UK has over 17,800 kilometres of coastline with a huge variety of habitats, everything from sandy beaches and salt marshes to rocky shores and kelp forests. 

Brad: It’s also important to note that our oceans play a crucial part in producing the air that we breathe. Phytoplankton, which are tiny marine organisms living near the surface of the water, contribute 50% to 85% of the oxygen in the Earth’s atmosphere. That means that the ocean is supplying us our every second breath. 

Izzy: Healthy coastlines also protect us from storms and flooding, store carbon, and support livelihoods from fishing to tourism. So when we protect our shores, we’re not just protecting nature, we’re also protecting ourselves. 

Brad: But our coastlines and the seas and oceans beyond them are under threat. We did ask our first guest, WWF UK’s Ocean Conservation Specialist, Tom Brook, about the biggest issues facing our shores. 

Tom: There’s a multitude of things impacting our coasts. They range from the increasing pressure we’re putting on them to provide renewable energy through to what we’ve always relied on the seas for, so fish and food security. But really what we’ve seen over the last 100, 150 years is a change in our UK coastlines in particular. And that’s from a loss of critical habitats. So some people are familiar with what we call blue forests, sea grasses and salt marshes and kelp forests. And they have such an important role to play in protecting our coastlines. They actually dampen wave energy, so increasing storms and everything that’s happening under climate change. These habitats act as climate buffers for us. So they capture carbon, both in the soils and the plants themselves, but they also help us to adapt to those rising sea levels, to those increasing storm damage. They sort of protect our coastlines. And what we’ve experienced over the last 150 years is an unfortunate and unprecedented loss of these habitats. So for salt marshes, we’ve lost at least 85% of them, according to some estimates. And sea grasses are gone from at least half the areas they once were. Kelp forests are thankfully doing quite well, and we’re seeing the rebound in some areas where protection measures are being purposely implanted, like on the south coast of England. And so these habitats have a really important role to play in supporting coastal communities, both from that adaptation and sort of climate buffers that I mentioned there. But they underpin all of our marine life. So the fish that we catch, many of them start their lives or rely on these habitats at one point in their life cycle, be it as juveniles as nursery grounds. So they use sea grasses for protection from predators or in kelp forests for migration corridors from north and south. So actually taking efforts now to restore those isn’t just a kind of marine issue. It’s everything that happens between that land-sea interaction as well. Stopping pollution in our rivers means that more healthy sea grass beds in our coast can support more marine life. So there’s all sorts of impacts we need to address both on land and at sea to actually help these habitats rebound. And because of what they play as that kind of underpinning of all marine life, they support everything from the fish that we have right on our coastline to those we have in the deep sea. 

Izzy: Do you know someone who loves the sea or has a soft spot for marine life? Maybe they’d be interested in learning how to keep our coasts clean and thriving. Well, if so, why not share this episode with them or send them to Carbon Copy’s website where we’ve got plenty of resources and links to help bring a wave of positive action to the coast. Check out the show notes for all the links you need. 

Brad: It sounds like the seas and coastal regions in particular are facing issues literally from all sides. This link between what happens upstream and what happens in the ocean was also something we heard about from our second guest, Dan Barrios-O’Neill. He’s head of marine conservation at Cornwall Wildlife Trust. 

Dan: There’s often a nod to doing marine conservation and also considering, let’s say a catchment-based approach, but it is unusual as marine conservationists to think about farm advice and about beavers as central to marine conservation, but nonetheless, it actually is. It really does matter what happens on the land. And I think that’s really apparent in a place like Cornwall because the catchments are quite small and you can often see the sea for most places in the catchment. But even, I mean, Britain is an island effectively, and even in places like Birmingham, what happens in Birmingham does matter for marine conservation. It’s just more difficult to draw a nice bright line between Birmingham, let’s say, or somewhere like Newark and what happens on the coast. It’s easier to do it in Cornwall, but if we can’t do it really well here, then I don’t think we can do it really well anywhere. 

Izzy: Yeah, you definitely would have thought that connecting people with the sea in Cornwall would be relatively easy. In fact, I imagine that the vast majority of people who go to Cornwall, whether it’s permanently or just on holiday, do so because they love the coastlines and the landscapes. Loving it doesn’t always mean looking after it, though. We asked Dan whether there were any downsides to trying to conserve wildlife in a place which is famous for natural beauty. 

Dan: A relatively small part of the country, which doesn’t have great infrastructure like Cornwall, is going to suffer on some fronts from lots of people visiting the area in the summer months, usually. And so we can see, for example, wildlife disturbance events going up in the tourist season, and that’s something that we are working to address with other conservation organisations in the region. And so there are some frustrations that come with the influx of tourists, but there’s also a lot of opportunity. There’s opportunity to connect people with marine environments to bring about a way of caring that wouldn’t necessarily exist. And I think that when we think of marine conservation, in a global sense, our minds are often drawn to tropical coral reefs and these wonderful vistas and just ostentatious displays of life that you see. But actually, Cornwall can help people, I think, realise that we have some of the most significant marine environments anywhere, full stop. And allowing people access to that does come with some downsides, but the overwhelming story for me is one of an upside, which is there’s opportunity for people to care and get invested in this very special part of the world. I think that’s a really important point and one that is sometimes lost on people. It’s just that what we have here is special and worth protecting, and allowing people to experience it, I think, creates that will, that collective will, to protect it. 

Brad: So talking of public awareness, I think now might be a good moment to mention the new documentary Ocean with David Attenborough. It’s been in the cinema for a few weeks now and it’s gonna be released on Disney Plus on World Oceans Day, which is on June the 8th. Now I know we’ve both seen the film now, so Izzy, I’d love to hear what you, well, what you thought about it. 

Izzy: Yeah, it’s a pretty hard-hitting watch and like you say, it’s really bringing to the fore that we know so little about what’s going on under the sea and particularly around fishing techniques and what those are doing to the life that lives under the ocean. It’s not just about these things happening in really far-off parts of the world. It’s happening on the shores of the UK as well and it’s really quite a disturbing thing to see. What about you? 

Brad: Yeah, I feel like there’s a few mind-blowing moments. I think it’s something like this 400,000 trawling boats that go through the ocean and it’s in parts of the world that showed it on a map where you’re like, wow, they’re everywhere. It’s absolutely everywhere. And this destructive fishing style is just absolutely devastating for all the nature around. So it’s pretty, yeah, it’s pretty depressing watch, but there is an element of positivity that I think we should talk about as well and that’s the ability for the ocean to be able to regenerate itself. 

Izzy: Yeah, it’s something that I didn’t realise at all is this amazing power that parts of the marine wildlife has for just essentially growing back. If you leave it alone, it can grow back. Even coral, and we all know about the big bleaching events that have taken place over the last few years where the sea temperature increases and corals turn white, they bleach. And it looks awful, it looks devastating and you sort of think, gosh, are we ever gonna come back from this? Is that coral ever gonna be able to recover? And yet there are places in the world where it is. And in the film, we saw parts of the coral reefs where there were baby corals growing and it all just sort of felt a little bit more positive. So it was really good to see that and a bit of a relief and to know that there are things that we can do or not do to allow that to start to recover. Another thing that was really great to see was about these highly protected marine areas. We learned about a couple, both in the US, one just near Hawaii and one just off the coast of California. So in both those places, there’s this absolute ban on fishing. It’s called a no-take zone. And the results of that have been absolutely incredible. Because the populations of fish have been allowed to replenish, because the sort of smaller marine life has been allowed to come back as well, it’s just absolutely thriving now. And what’s really brilliant about it is that it’s not just affecting the areas directly within that no-take zone, it’s also spilling out into the rest of the ocean because of course there’s no physical boundary in the ocean. The ocean is a big wide open sea, essentially it’s all one big sea. And so the areas around those no-take zones are also thriving as well. And it’s really helping the wildlife beyond there, but it’s also helping fishermen. And we had a really lovely part with a fisherman who was explaining how much of a positive impact it’s had on him and his business as well, which is great to see because you’d have thought that maybe fishermen would be not that into the idea of a no-take zone, since it’s literally what they have to do to make their money. 

Brad: Yeah, you could sort of think as you’re watching the film, I can see that fishermen aren’t gonna agree with where this is going, but there is this sort of beautiful relationship that can happen if more of these no-take zones are allowed to happen across the world. It was definitely a ray of sunshine and what I would say was a pretty difficult watch. I think maybe we should address the things that we can do together on our level to sort of help towards protecting our own coasts in the UK. We spoke to Tom Brook about how WWF UK is helping to bring the people of the UK closer to protecting our coastlines and how they’re ensuring that people feel connected to the ocean. 

Tom: Really, the key thing that we’re doing to try and get people excited and feel connected to the ocean is bringing them along that journey with us. So getting people to come and plant seagrass, members of the community, having them be able to see all of the benefits of seaweed farming without just seeing what the impact on the sea would be, so the actual infrastructure itself. These are all really important aspects of trying to get people to really appreciate what the sea does for us. Being out of sight, out of mind, it’s harder to appreciate what the sea does for things like climate change than say a forest does. I think we’ve all become quite familiar with how forests absorb carbon, the trees that’s stored in their trunks and their roots. And we don’t really appreciate the same happening with the ocean. And so what we do, and I think what’s great about WWF and all of the other NGOs working in this area is trying to communicate that better, try and bring it into terms that we all understand. And so bringing these areas like blue carbon, which is the ability for the ocean to absorb carbon like trees do, is really important. And helping people to understand how those benefits mix and affect our individual lives is really how WWF UK is doing it. But nothing is more impactful, I think, than actually getting people out. The planting of seagrasses, the seeing of harvesting of seaweed, these kind of things are really important to make sure that people feel connected to the ocean. And again, with the immense coastline we have in the UK, it’s so important to make people feel connected with that rather than just kind of all the habitats they can engage with on a daily basis. And there’s a real growing evidence base to suggest that being around blue spaces, so our coasts, ponds, lakes, streams, rivers, all have a benefit to our mental health as well. So trying to make sure that people feel that you can get out to these habitats and making them accessible is also very important. 

Izzy: Carbon Copy is all about local action for climate and nature, but I think many people find it hard to get their heads around the idea of local action to support or tackle the impacts of climate change that happens in the sea. Because after all, none of us lives in the sea, none of us owns a part of the sea. We asked Dan about this, and he told us about some of the work happening in Cornwall to bridge this gap. 

Dan: I think the fact that our local nature recovery strategies stop at the tide line is something of an issue because nature doesn’t really respect that boundary. So on the land, we have the ability to buy sections of land and do conservation in the way that we think is best on that land. And that’s great, and it should be done, of course, but that doesn’t get to happen in the sea. We don’t get to buy bits of the sea and manage the sea in the way that we think is best. It is necessarily a social and political project to do marine conservation properly, and therefore it needs buy-in from stakeholders, from community groups, from fishers, and that sort of thing. So it’s really lovely to see the council in this part of the world working to develop a marine recovery framework that will complement those local nature recovery strategies. So what the trust is doing, perhaps the most important thing that I think we do in Cornwall is facilitate a network of community groups. This is called the Your Shore Network, and these are 21 independent community groups that do marine conservation in the ways that they think are best with their priorities, where they live. And that can be everything from helping with our seagrass restoration programs that we have going on down here. It can include getting involved with the citizen science programs that we run. It can also involve campaigning for and supporting voluntary marine conservation areas. And over time, there’s been about six, I think, in Cornwall that have kind of existed in one way or another, in part, as a result of that community action. 

So a really important kind of part of the work is supporting communities to do the work that they do really well, where they live, and bringing them together, facilitating that connectivity, and also providing training and support and resource to help them do what they do. There’s lots of other things that we do do, but I think for me, that Your Shore Network is so important, and it’s, I think, a kind of model of marine conservation that would be brilliant to see rolled out across maybe the wider country. 

Izzy: I guess this is a good time to note if all this talk of seagrasses is floating your boat, then you should definitely head over to our episode, Sowing the Sea, from our All Nature series, to learn more about this fascinating marine plant species. But of course, don’t go just yet. 

Brad: So we’ve looked at the biggest issues facing the UK’s coastlines, and how these two organisations are addressing our personal connectivity to the sea, and also the connection between our land and the sea. I think it’s high tide we heard about some of the work WWF UK is doing to help marine species to thrive, and to provide us with benefits, including biodiversity, carbon sequestration, and food security. 

Tom: We’re aiming to restore 15% of seagrass beds around the UK. And this has really been sort of the initial pilot, really leading the way and helping to determine the best ways to regrow seagrass, to replant it, and bring all those benefits back to our coasts. And that’s happening in various places in Wales and England, including the Solent, but also in the Firth of Forth up in Scotland. And that’s where we’re both trying to reintroduce seagrass meadows, but also native oysters. And what that does is bring back an important keystone habitat, which is oyster reefs. 

And what oyster reefs do is they actually filter water. And there used to be a huge abundance of oyster reefs in the Firth of Forth. At one point, I believe the maximum fishing that was happening there was pulling out 30 million oysters a year. And so this is the first time oysters have been put back in the Firth of Forth for over a hundred years. And it’s a really exciting project, because what that means is the oyster reef that we hope will establish there in due course will start to filter that water again and really change the dynamics for all the other species and habitats in that region. So by reintroducing both seagrasses and oysters, we’re hoping that they support each other and making the best case possible for their restoration. So it’s quite an exciting time to be involved in that. And then there’s also an exciting development in the potential for seaweed farming in the UK. Seaweed farming is a really important area and a really quickly developing field that can beat both our food security needs. So in producing seaweed as food, which is quite a novel thing, but also helping to buffer climate change, support biodiversity. It’s quite like, unlike other forms of aquaculture, it has very small impacts in the ocean but brings benefits as well. And it produces this biomass, this seaweed that can be used for so many things from seaweed packaging through to human food and animal feed. And it’s a really versatile product that we are hoping can integrate into all sorts of supply chains in the UK. And it will bring a really sustainable supply chain that we currently don’t exploit. And it’s great for coastal communities as well because where jobs had previously been supported by fisheries or other areas that are now kind of lacking, we hope that seaweed farming can support more coastal communities as well. 

Izzy: Wow, who’d have thunk it? Do you fancy a little bit of seaweed for supper Brad? 

Brad: Well, you know, I do love crispy seaweed from a Chinese. I wonder how actual seaweed would taste deep fried. Maybe with a little side of chips at the seaside.  

Izzy: Hmm, well, I’ll leave that to your imagination for now, Brad. But speaking of fried food, we did speak to Dan about ways that what we eat can have a big impact for marine conservation. 

Dan: Certainly in terms of actions that can be taken that move the needle for marine conservation. I think there are a couple. Perhaps one of the less kind of well-considered ones is the sorts of food that we choose to have. Of course, I think a more plant-based diet does matter. It’s kind of one of the main levers that individuals can pull. And we have a local instantiation of a national rating scheme through the Cornwall Good Seafood Guide where we recommend the sorts of species that are most sustainable and I guess least damaging from the point of view of consumption. So for example, line-grown mussels are perhaps as sustainable as it gets, period, even compared to many plants in terms of the impact that they bring. Locally-potted lobster, ring-netted Cornish sardines. These are all really sustainable sources of protein. 

I think definitely based on what we saw in Ocean, there’s a real critical need for thinking about where fish comes from and also how it’s caught. What was nice to see, however and is nice to hear that Cornwall Wildlife Trust is supporting this too. Is that fishing and conservation don’t have to be at odds with one another. 

Izzy: Yeah, thinking back to the two really successful no-take zones that we mentioned earlier that feature in the film, they actually support the local fishing communities. They support people who depend on fishing for their livelihoods. It’s not a fight, it’s not a conflict between fishing and protecting the ocean. It’s something that can help everyone. So if you live in a coastal community, even if you don’t live in a coastal community, you can speak to your MP, you can speak to the people who are in charge at your local council, you can add your voice to campaigns for stronger protections in the water. In fact, Dan mentioned the importance of voting with nature in mind when we spoke to him. 

Dan: The thing that I think really matters in marine conservation is getting involved in campaigns, writing to your MP, voting with nature in mind. It’s always good to have your voting choice in mind. And again, this is particularly important in the marine context, because changing anything for marine conservation is always social and political by its nature. So your votes matter, who you vote for matters. And these things do feed through to real tangible changes. I mean, if we think back to the Climate Change Act, that was a piece of legislation that was born of a huge campaign where we had hundreds of thousands of signatories in the UK that really pushed politicians to do something different. And okay, that hasn’t changed, it hasn’t solved everything, but it is part of the reason that our energy mix has a lot more wind in it now than it did 15 years ago. So I think that’s a win. Equally in 2022-23, the Wildlife Trust were campaigning for Highly Protected Marine Areas. And we had something like 20,000 signatories pushing the government to actually deliver on piloting three. And now we have three, in UK waters where the idea is that all damaging activity is prohibited. And so it’s not a perfect story, but things have changed as a result of campaign actions that individuals have taken. With the Highly Protected Marine Areas, there’s lots of work to do, but we’re on a journey and it’s like continued public pressure. And those local and national campaigns that really do matter in the big picture for changing things for marine conservation. 

Brad: Tom also gave us some ideas of ways that people can take action for the ocean and beyond. 

Tom: The first I think would be about helping us to support a new campaign called the Living Planet Act. So this is calling on the UK government to make joint action for the climate crisis. So looking after nature, making sure everyone has access to healthy food and stopping climate change. And having the support of people will really make sure that the government listens to this need and acknowledges the importance of that. But then there’s also all around our coastlines from the project that WWF UK are managing and other NGOs. There’s great opportunities to get involved in marine conservation and restoration more generally, be it on salt marshes recording what the diversity of plants and birds are passing through or from seagrasses actually planting them. There’s a whole wealth of options to get involved in marine restoration. I’d really encourage people to get out there and try it because it’s extremely rewarding. And we live in such a rich historical nation about the marine environment. We’re seafarers, we’re fishermen, we’re fishers. And this is all really important to getting out there and making sure that our marine environment is just as appreciated as our other habitats like Woodland and Peatland here in the UK. So getting involved directly is definitely something people can do as well. 

Izzy: It sounds really exciting. I’d love to get out there and do a bit of seagrass planting. What do you think, Brad? 

Brad: Yeah, I could definitely dip my toe in the water of marine conservation. 

Izzy: Oh my. Could this be our punniest episode yet? 

Brad: We’ll sea! 

Izzy: Anyway, shall we sum up a bit about what we’ve learnt? 

Brad: We’ve learnt that our coastlines are so crucial, not just for marine life, but for us as well. Our shores are acting as buffers against storms. They’re helping us to store carbon. And they’re providing us with our every second breath. It’s a massive thing that we need to protect, not just for ourselves, but for all marine life as well. 

Izzy: Yeah, and we’ve heard about how much we’ve already lost. We’ve lost 85% of salt marshes. We’ve lost half of seagrass meadows. But we do know there’s hope. This is not a completely depressing podcast episode. It’s about discovering that there is actually stuff that can be done. There are loads of restoration projects underway to bring these habitats back and to protect them. There’s reintroduction of oyster reefs, there’s seagrass planting, there’s seaweed farming as well. So lots going on. 

Brad: And of course, we’ve been showing how interconnected the land and the sea is. What happens upstream, whether it’s pollution or land management, it eventually ends up in the ocean. So that’s why there should be a focus on both from farming advice down to seagrass planting. 

Izzy: And finally, we heard how important it is to reconnect people with the ocean. Tom from WWF said it best, getting people out there planting seagrass or learning about marine habitats, it’s key to bridging that gap and making people care about what they can’t see in the sea. 

Brad: I see. So, yeah, that’s it for today’s episode, Protect Our Shores. If you are feeling inspired to take action, there’s loads of information on the Carbon Copy website about coastal protection initiatives around the UK. And as always, we’d love to hear your feedback, leave a review or rating wherever you’re listening or email us at hello at carboncopy.eco. That’s E C O. 

Izzy: You’ve been listening to Do Something Bigger from the Carbon Copy Podcast. 

Brad: It was written and presented by me, Bradley Ingham.  

Izzy: And me, Isabelle Sparrow. Brad also produced and edited this episode. Huge thanks to our guests, Tom Brook from WWF UK and Dan Barrios-O’Neill from Cornwall Wildlife Trust. Our next episode is Lobby for Change, where we’ll be talking about high impact campaigns that you can support to help boost local powers and ensure everyone’s voice is heard. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Goodbye.