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Coastal grazing marsh - Losses
In Britain some of the older grazing marshes behind sea walls survived at
the turn of the century. However, the conversion of these coastal permanent
pastures to arable land has destroy many areas and with them most of the nature
conservation interest. Of the grazing marshes surviving in the 1930's between
30-70% have been lost in various parts of southeast England, (Thornton
& Kite 1990). Other indicative figures are given in the table below:
| Location |
% Loss |
Dates and reason |
Reference |
| Thames Estuary, including North Kent |
13% |
lost to urbanisation |
Reported in Nature
Conservancy Council 1984 |
| 35% |
lost to intensive arable cultivation |
| Essex |
80% |
of that present in the 1930s lost by the late 1980s |
Davidson et al. 1991 |
| Suffolk |
20% |
converted to arable between 1955 to 1958 |
Beardall et al. 1988 |
Comment: The conversion to arable land completes the destruction
of the inter-tidal saltmarsh habitat originally removed from the influence of
the sea and modified to create the grazing marsh. In more recent years enclosures
have been used within a few years for intensive agriculture. This has prevented
the development of anything other than limited nature conservation interest
on the enclosed land.
References
Nature Conservancy Council
1984.
Nature Conservation in Great Britain.
Nature Conservancy Council, Peterborough.
Thornton, D. & Kite, D.J.
1990.
Changes in the Extent of the Thames Grazing Marshes.
Nature Conservancy, London.
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