North Devon is making a name for itself as a centre for marine awareness activities.
The Marine Educator’s conference organized by the Biosphere Foundation on Tuesday 9th February was a great success. A full-house, 80 or so educators drawn from across Devon, came to hear at first hand about opportunities for learning on the coast. Coastwise had a display which attracted much attention (click on links for pictures)
Popular taster sessions were provided on the beach by Mark Ward, from Nettlecombe Field Studies Centre, and Pete Jollands, a Biosphere Foundation Director from Hallsannery. Presentations ran throughout the day and included contributors to Coastwise programmes: photographer Paul Naylor, MarLIN’s Jack Sewell, and Andrew Knights, Natural England Marine Officer for North Devon.
Coastwise members volunteered some help and took every opportunity to participate fully. We learnt a lot and made new contacts. Ruda proved to be great venue where presentations, displays and refreshments were provided alongside one another, resulting in much happily unavoidable networking.
This whole thing was devised and expertly delivered by Biosphere Foundation Director, Fiona Fraser-Smith – AONB SDF funded and another super event in honour of the AONB’s 50th Anniversary.
From the sublime to mud: Coastwise Skern and Crow Point Mud project teams got down to their sampling project this week and received inspiration from the best. Tegwyn Harris, a retired Exeter University biologist and broadcaster, talked on “Mud glorious Mud” and delighted his audience.
His talk was perfectly pitched, informative and entertaining. In response to many questions he was prepared to get deeply practical about mud sampling, to the delight of mud project members, showing great generosity with the knowledge and expertise he has built up over more than 40 years, a generosity that Coastwise hopes to call upon again.