CEFAS find no recovery of eco-system damage after offshore dredging
CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries & Aquaculture Science)
Once BMAPA and their apologists claimed there was no long term impact on the seabed and its inhabitants from offshore aggregate dredging, stating that the seabed and the ecosystem dependant on it rapidly recovered from marine aggregate dredging. They are on record (on our MARINET video) for having claimed recovery and rehabilitation to come about “within a year”.
This myth has long been disputed by many fisherman, who have discovered from first hand knowledge and practical experience that dredged out areas do not recover even after sixteen years. (See the findings by Rodney and Graham Burns of the Aldeburgh Fishing Guild under ‘The Losses Account’ in our Marine Aggregate Briefing Paper).
Since then CEFAS and HR Wallingford have produced a very thorough and comprehensive study of the long term impact upon the sea bed following Offshore Aggregate Dredging, albeit they only studied the effect after a period of three years on one site and four on another. The change in strata was noted, that little or no sign of recovery was discovered in the ecosystem of the dredged area stripped of seabed life or the area smothered by the plume from adjacent dredging in that time.
Numerous photographs and charts are included to support the findings.
The paper by Boyd S.E. et al is entitled “Assessment of the Rehabilitation of the Seabed following Marine Aggregate Dredging“.
