Crossing the Internal Frontiers - Agri-culture: Reconnecting People, Land and Nature - page 178

remnants of salt marsh, a once common habitat. The farm itself dates back
at least to the Domesday Book survey of 1085. In 2000, with the support
of several organizations, the Essex Wildlife Trust purchased the farm with
a grand design in mind. 13 This is highly productive farmland, yet John and
colleagues plan to punch five breaches into the sea wall and allow salt-water
irrigation to create 120 hectares of new salt marshes, coastal grazing, reed
beds and saline lagoons. The remainder of the farm will be devoted to
sustainable agriculture methods, including the reinstatement of hedge-
rows, ditches, copses and field margins.
The idea is alarming to some people, who see the sea as the enemy of
the land. 14 Yet, what will happen when this change in landscape occurs?
Previously, the farm did one thing, and one thing well. It produced arable
crops. But now it will do many things, with rare habitats and sustainable
farming methods on land, and new habitats for oysters and fish in the sea.
The extra salt marsh could benefit the village of Salcott further up the
channel, since high tide would be substantially lowered, thus reducing
flood risk. As the sea level rises, is it not better that it is used positively
to create new habitats that complement other land uses? This diverse
landscape will help to do exactly that. The Abbotts Hall project will also
be a practical example of coastal realignment that scientists and local
people can touch and feel, thus bringing reassurance about sustainable
coastal defences.
The Fisherman and The Poet
There is no greater contrast than between the coastal flats of eastern
England and the mountainous landscapes of Japan. Our heroes come from
Miyagi and Iwane Prefectures, and they connect forests and the marine
environment in the Okawa watershed . At the top of the mountains there
were deciduous forests, once valued for charcoal and fuel wood; in the
estuary in Kesennuma Bay there were famous beds of oysters and edible
seaweed known as konbu and nori . But over the years, the traditional forests
were cut down or replaced with conifers, wetlands were reclaimed near the
river mouth, the river itself was channelled with concrete, and modern
agricultural methods were adopted.
The first sign that something was wrong occurred when the oyster
fishery collapsed three decades before the end of the century, closely
followed by large changes in seaweed populations. It seems obvious that
changes in water quality, combined with variable flows, might have had an
effect at the estuary end of the system. But at the time, it took the perceptive
observation of a fisherman named Hatakeyama to do something about