Jncc coastal Directories Project Region 11 The Western Approaches

1.1.1  Introduction
Developing sound policies for coastal environmental
management depends on wide ranging contextual
information being available.  Collecting such information is
always time-consuming and difficult, especially ensuring
that all relevant aspects are covered.
This problem is widely recognised.  Nevertheless the
solution - amassing the encyclopaedic knowledge required,
collating it in useable form and disseminating it to potential
users while the information is still current - has until
recently been too daunting a project for any single
organisation to tackle.  However, with the help of
sponsorship from a large number of organisations and
support and practical help from many bodies, ranging from
government departments to voluntary organisations, and
using numerous experts as writers and consultees, the Joint
Nature Conservation Committee has undertaken to prepare
such a compendium of information for the coast of the
whole United Kingdom.  
This undertaking - the Coastal Directories Project -
collates existing information on the United Kingdom and
Isle of Man coastal zone to provide national and regional
overviews of its natural resources and human activities, and
indexes more detailed sources of information.  The project
uses a broad definition of the coastal margin that
encompasses all the main habitats from offshore waters
through to dry land, including any habitat forming part of
the functioning coastal system; in addition areas of former
tidal land now enclosed from the sea and lowland wet
grassland alongside tidal rivers are included.  At times it can
be either unhelpful or impossible to set precise limits on the
geographic areas that need to be covered, for example in the
marine environment, such as when discussing fisheries or
sources of contamination.  However, where possible,
coverage is of coastal 10 km squares, or sites within one
kilometre of Mean High Water Mark, or (for marine topics)
from the landward limit of high tides out to the median line
between the UK and neighbouring states.  Areas inland of
these limits are not included unless specifically stated.  
The relationships between the many and varied
components of the coastal zone, that is, between the
physical functioning of the zone, its biological components
and the human activities that take place there, are complex.
With this in mind, a wide-ranging approach to collating
coastal information has been adopted in the project;
information has been drawn from many sources, from
national databases and nation-wide published surveys to
the personal observations of field specialists and the
newsletters of amateur societies.  The approach has also
served to highlight the interactions and interdependence
between the environmental components (and between the
various bodies and individuals) involved.  This should help
to ensure that users of the information develop policies and
adopt strategies that secure the integrated, sustainable use
and management of the coastal zone while maintaining
biological diversity - a key element of Agenda 21 of the 
Rio Earth Summit in 1992.
1.1.2  Origins and early development of the
project
The concept of providing integrated coastal information
took a long time to evolve into the Coastal Directories
Project.  As early as 1984, the need for such data was
acknowledged at the first International Conference on the
Protection of the North Sea.  In 1987, recognising the
significant gaps that existed in the scientific understanding
of the North Sea, the Second International Conference on
the Protection of the North Sea established the North Sea
Task Force (NSTF).  Under the guidance of the International
Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) and the Oslo
and Paris Commissions, the NSTF organised a programme
of study with the primary aim of producing a (mainly
marine) assessment of the North Sea (the North Sea Quality
Status Report (QSR)) by 1993.  
In 1989 at the second meeting of the NSTF the UK
suggested that the North Sea QSR should include
consideration of terrestrial habitats and species.  This was to
involve the collection of information dealing with the
coastal margin of the North Sea (defined as being east of
longitude 5° West - i.e. from Cape Wrath in northern
Scotland around the North Sea and the English Channel
coasts to the Fal Estuary in Cornwall) and the collation of
this information into book form.  A project was set up by the
Nature Conservancy Council (NCC) and, after 1991, the
Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC), to produce
this information, with part funding from the Department of
the Environment (DoE).  A small group was invited to steer
the project and to help identify information sources,
including the DoE, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food (MAFF), the National Rivers Authority (NRA)
(now the Environment Agency (EA)), the Countryside
Commission (CC), the Scottish Office (SO), the Welsh Office
(WO) and the country conservation agencies (English
Nature, Scottish Natural Heritage, Countryside Council for
Wales).  With its help, a draft text was prepared in 1990-91;
the resulting Directory of the North Sea coastal margin - the
first product of the Coastal Directories Project, as it was to
become - was presented to Ministers at the Intermediate
Ministerial Meeting on the North Sea held in Denmark in
December 1993 (Doody et al. 1993).  
9
Chapter 1  Overview
1.1  The Coastal Directories Project
Dr J.P. Doody

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