{"id":1581,"date":"2020-07-01T13:15:33","date_gmt":"2020-07-01T13:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/?p=1581"},"modified":"2020-07-23T14:36:07","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T14:36:07","slug":"clean-waters-and-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/2020\/07\/01\/clean-waters-and-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Clean waters and history"},"content":{"rendered":"

In these difficult and troubling times, there is a need to<\/span><\/span> seek out good news and cheer. So let’s start with the fact that the sea water temperature around Salcombe is 14<\/span><\/span>\u00b0<\/span><\/span>C, which is the average for this time of year; and the 15<\/span><\/span>\u00b0<\/span><\/span>C water has reached Ushant<\/a> and is nudging north towards us.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The even better news is that the Harbour\u2019s certified bathing beaches \u2013 North Sands<\/a>, South Sands<\/a> and Mill Bay<\/a> \u2013 have all tested \u201cExcellent\u201d for water quality for the last three years. North Sands and Mill Bay have both been \u201cExcellent\u201d for a number of years; but South Sands dropped down to \u201cGood\u201d in 2016 so lost its coveted Blue Flag. After three years of being \u201cExcellent\u201d, South Sands could now recover its Blue Flag. The scheme is run by the Copenhagen-based <\/span><\/span>Foundation for Environmental Education<\/i><\/span><\/span><\/a> and operates in 46 countries across the World so, post-Brexit, the UK can still have Blue Flags. North Sands and Mill Bay would not qualify principally because they do not ban dogs during the bathing season<\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Although about 40% of the UK\u2019s coastal waters are protected<\/a> by Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) status, there is a \"\"problem. Fishing can still take place in MCZs which, not surprisingly, are fertile fishing waters \u2013 making them very attractive to supertrawlers. These are huge vessels which can stay at sea for weeks on end and have on-board facilities to process and freeze the fish. But they are controversial: on the one hand, their ability to treat fish immediately preserves the freshness of fish, like mackerel, which would otherwise deteriorate quickly<\/a>. The claim is, therefore, that more of their fish goes for human consumption rather than animal feed and a number of MSC-Certified<\/a> fisheries use supertrawlers.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, supertrawlers hoover up fish in vast quantities, perhaps 250 tons a day, and existing legislation allows them to sweep through the MCZs<\/a>, which seems odd. In my view, the easiest way to resolve difficulties of sustainable fishing and supporting coastal communities has always been simply to limit boat size. Australia has banned any fishing vessel larger than 130 metres which looks a bit big to me as there are plenty of supertrawlers around 80 metres long and that is a very large vessel by any standards.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

My final bit of cheer is something entirely unrelated. One bright spark in the distressing turmoil of the last few weeks has been a history lecturer<\/a> bemoaning \u201cwhat\u2019s so wrong with rewriting history? That\u2019s what historians do all the time. It\u2019s our job!<\/a>\u201d.<\/span><\/span><\/u><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In these difficult and troubling times, there is a need to seek out good news and cheer. So let’s start with the fact that the sea water temperature around Salcombe is 14\u00b0C, which is the average for this time of year; and the 15\u00b0C water has reached Ushant and is nudging north towards us. The even better news is that the Harbour\u2019s certified bathing beaches \u2013 North Sands, South Sands and Mill Bay \u2013 have all tested \u201cExcellent\u201d for water…<\/p>\n

read moreClean waters and history<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1581"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1608,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1581\/revisions\/1608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marriages.me.uk\/hugh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}