For all of you who are interested in what an Estuary Officer actually does from day to day on the Exe this is your opportunity to find out....
I try to update this page at least every 2 weeks with a summary of my activities and work programme for that period. If there are any particularly special events that I take part in then I will be sure to give you a more detailed account soon after the event.
My role is generally divided in to 5 themes:
You can find out more about each of these areas throughout the website and our Action Plan and Management Plan are available to download to give you a clearer idea of our objectives.
Monday 20th October to Friday 14th November
On the afternoon of Monday 20th I met with Kaya Curry, the Tamar Estuary Officer, in Plymouth to discuss a new development levy that Plymouth City Council have applied to new housing developments in Plymouth in order to contribute to the management costs of the estuary. Levies are already applied to new developments in order to subsidise the extra pressure an increased population will cause to schools and roads etc, so it is a great opportunity to secure funding for the management of the Estuary. There is a great possibility that a similar levy could be used on new developments around the Exe estuary in order to compensate for the additional pressure that they causes to the use of the estuary.
Wednesday 22nd October was the Autumn Forum for the Exe so kept me busy preparing for it for most of that week.
From Monday 27th to Wednesday 29th I attended Natural England's annual Marine Protected Areas conference in Liverpool. The conference was a great opportunity to learn about national developments and to share best practice with other Estuary Officers from around the country. On Thursday I attended a communications team meeting for the Coastal Management Study to prepare arrangements for the launch of the SMP and publishing of the study on Tuesday 18th November.
On Monday 3rd November I was able to spend some time in the office catching up on emails and enquiries. On Tuesday I met with Richard Tugwell of the Environment Agency to finalise the survey results of the Estuary Health Audit and on Wednesday I attended the Devon Maritime Forum. On Thursday I met with Geoffrey Harding of the Exeter Local History Society to discuss the creation of a heritage trail for the estuary and on Friday I spent the day writing the report for the Health Audit.
Monday 29th September to Friday 17th October 2008
On Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th I worked with Devon Sea Fisheries to continue the crab tile survey, this time on the Eastern side of the Exe. Wednesday 21st was the first of our four walks for the Health Audit that we are completing of the Estuary. On Thursday 2nd I attended an Estuary Partnership Summit organised by the Devon Maritime Forum and on Friday the 3rd I attended a seazone workshop.
During the following week I spent most of my time in the office catching up with emails and making arrangements for the remainder of the health walks. On the Tuesday I met with the communication team for the Coastal Management Study to discuss the timing and dissemination of the release of the final study. Hopefully they will be able to release the study during November now instead of January. On Thursday I met with my Forum Chairs, Lyn and Neil, to have our regular catch-up session and plan some of the final arrangements for the Forum.
The beginning of the week of Monday 13th included lots of arrangements for the Forum the following week, issuing press releases and collecting materials for it. During the remainder of the week we carried out the remaining three health walks with the Lower Western Shore on the Wednesday, Upper Eastern on the Thursday and upper western on the Friday. We were very fortunate with the weather and had beautiful sunshine for most of the days.
On Saturday 18th October a few volunteers helped out at Dawlish Warren to remove invasive shrubs from the sand dune habitat.
Monday 15th September to Friday 26th September 2008
The weekend of Saturday 20th September was scheduled for the Exe Estuary Clean up so much preparation was taken during the week beforehand to prepare for the event. Although many of the arrangements had been made there were some last minute tasks to complete. That week also saw the start of the crab tile survey with a count of the tiles present on the Western side of the Estuary on Wednesday and Thursday, which meant getting very muddy at low time and counting thousands of tiles, but was great fun with only a few 'sticky' moments.
The Clean up at Exmouth on Saturday 20th went amazingly well and I was overwhelmed by the amount of volunteers that joined in. For the first time it felt that we cleared as much of the litter as could physically get to within the low tide. The clean ups are really starting to have a lasting impact on the amount of litter on the Exe. I led the volunteers on the Exmouth LNR but there were also groups of volunteers helping out with the Inner Warren, led by Devon Wildlife Trust, and a dive to clear litter from the pier at Exmouth. We were very fortunate to have fantastic weather for the event and the day was rounded off perfectly with a free cruise courtesy of Stuart Line. Sunday saw another clean up but this time on Dawlish Warren, led by the Teignbridge District Council Rangers.
Monday 22nd and Tuesday 23rd were a chance to catch up on office activities with lots of emails and the crab tile maps to write up. On Wednesday 24th I attended an International Climate Change conference at Exeter University, which was a great insight in to the amount of studies being undertaken to better understand and prepare for the inevitable climate changes that are coming. Thursday was another office day and on Friday I met with a James Chubb (EDDC Education Ranger) and representatives of Transition Town Exmouth to discuss the development of a community allotment alongside the estuary in Exmouth.
Monday 1st September to Friday 12th 2008
The last couple of weeks have been very busy with preparation for next Saturday's clean up event as well as two volunteer events and several meetings. You may have spotted me on ITV Westcountry on Wednesday 10th as I was interviewed about the volunteer event at Dawlish Warren.
The Monday and Tuesday of the first week were spent in the office making arrangements for forthcoming events except for Tuesday afternoon when I met Tracey Guiry of East Devon District Council to discuss the progress of the Exmouth visitor centre. On Wednesday I was at the RSPB's Exminster Marshes helping to lead a group of Bank Managers from Lloyds TSB in some practical conservation of the site, see the volunteer event page for more details and photos. Thursday and Friday were spent replying to a couple of consultation papers, such as the new High Level Marine Objectives paper, as well as researching possible funding for a heritage trail and creating text for the new Friends of Group welcome pack.
Monday and Tuesday of the second week were similar to the last with further preparation for the clean up, such as preparing the press release and making arrangements for the volunteer event on the Wednesday. On Wednesday I was at Dawlish Warren working with the Rangers and a small group of volunteers to remove weed from the pond in order to improve the habitat potential of the site, more information will soon be added to our volunteer events page. On Thursday I was on leave and on Friday I spent the morning with Mel from Natural England discussing actions for next year in order to deliver the Exe Estuary Management Plan and the afternoon was spent catching up with emails and enquiries.
Monday 4th August to Friday 29th August 2008
For the first 2 weeks of August I took some much needed Annual Leave in order to enjoy some of the lovely British sunshine - or rain maybe, well at least the Olympics were on the television!
Although the website was now complete (all but a few of the pages that require some additional information) there have been some problems within the web team to actually get the site changed over, so once back from annual leave I was disappointed to find that the site was still not live and spent a fair bit of the following week chasing up the team responsible. Finally the site went live on Wednesday 27th August to my great delight after so much time working on it.
With the next clean up only a few weeks away and an August newsletter to prepare the last couple of weeks of August have been spent writing articles and organising events.
Friday 4th July to Thursday 31st July 2008
The majority of the last couple of months have been spent finishing the website which unfortunately left me very little time to keep this blog up to date, however now that the website is finally ready to go live I will be able to focus on keeping the pages up to date.
The second week of July saw one of our busiest education weeks so far with James Chubb and I delivering different session on the Estuary and at Maer rocks to more than 500 students in one week as part of St Peters School's activities week. The students were fantastic and really embraced the opportunity to get out and explore the estuary. Unfortunately this will be the last of our education sessions until next spring when the schools are ready to brave the rain once again.
Monday 21st July was a team development day for the countryside team at Devon County Council so we headed up to North Devon and Saunton Sands to try out their new Node Explorers. The North Devon team have been working on various different methods of interpretating the environment and the Node Explorers are one way in which they hope to increase residents and visitor’s enjoyment and understanding of the local environment. A hand held device with a screen and headphones the Node Explorer talks the visitor through what can be seen as well as points of historical interest. It was very interesting to test out this new technology and gave me some ideas for future interpretation methods on the Exe!
Over the next couple of weeks I met with the Environment Agency to discuss new canoe loops that they hope to create on the estuary and finally completed the new Exe Activities leaflet.
Monday 23rd June to Friday 4th July 2008
I have spent a fair amount of my time on office based activities for the last couple of weeks trying to get the new recreation leaflet completed, adding information to the website and replying to the Exeter Green Infrastructure consultation, which involved reading a very large document.
On Monday 23rd I met with Ralph Mackridge of Devon Wildlife Trust to discuss the Exeter Wild City project, which he has just started working on. We met to discuss his ideas for the project and how the Exe Estuary Management Partnership can support and get involved. The project is still in its very early stages but Ralph is now up to date on the role and work of the partnership so will keep us in mind as the project progresses. We hope to coordinate on events, such as the clean up, to involve more community groups in Exeter with the Estuary.
On Tuesday I attended a steering group meeting for the Coastal Management Study to discuss the final stages of the project and how the partnership can help to disseminate the results to the communities and organisations around the Estuary and provide opportunities for them to get more information, such as through the next Forum event.
On Wednesday I met with Chris White who along with other volunteers is working on a project called Transition Town Exmouth. The aim is to follow the example of other transition towns, such as Totnes, to improve the energy use of the town, by looking at where resources are currently sourced from and whether there are more locally based alternatives. Chris is keen to use a page of the website to communicate these ideas with other interested groups so watch this space for further updates in the future.
On Monday 30th June the partnership met to discuss my work so far and give guidance on forthcoming projects. Minutes of the meeting will be available shortly on the Management Partnership pages of the website.
This morning (Friday 4th July) the first meeting of the disturbance study steering group was held. This is the start of a long process which will examine the effects of water based recreational activities on the Wildfowl and Waders on the Exe. The results of the study are hoped to provide guidance on how this delicate balance is managed on a National level. More information is available under our research and surveys pages.