Habitats
“The ocean’s power of regeneration is remarkable – if we just offer it the chance.” David Attenborough
Many of these habitats, if in a healthy state, provide natural solutions to helping protect against flooding and opportunities for carbon sequestration. Carbon dioxide, or CO2, is a gas that contributes towards climate change and air pollution. By locking carbon in via woodlands, seagrass meadows and saltmarsh we can help mitigate against global warming, ensuring cleaner air for everyone.
There are other amazing things that these diverse habitats do too; for instance, saltmarsh and seagrass help improve water quality, absorb the energy from wave and storm surges, and provide breeding grounds for many sea creatures and commercial fish species. This helps coastal communities adapt and be more resilient to predicted sea level rises and the other impacts of climate change and can also ensure provide sustainable seafood products.
SCAMP’s Habitats
We are looking at five key habitats to restore: maritime/coastal woodland, salt marsh, sea grass meadows, oyster bed reefs and sand dunes.
Loch Ryan has the last Scottish wild native oyster fishery, understudied and under-mapped areas of seagrasses (, a genetically unique strain of zostera marina and zostera noltii), and large expanses of saltmarsh, providing the ideal areas for expansion and research. Coastal woodlands abut saltmarsh and cling to coastal cliffs, sand dunes provide unique habitats for the nationally rare natterjack toad (Epidalea calamita) and the tadpole shrimp (Tricops cancriforms), only found in one other place in Britain.
In terms of biodiversity enhancement, SCAMP’s proposed habitats/species form a vitally important part of the marine ecosystem and are each different but important biodiversity hubs, increasing the species numbers and diversity of the Solway’s coastal and marine environment.