Back in September, my husband and I joined an intertidal survey with the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust. With a huge interest in marine life, and aquaculture and fisheries a key part of my work, I was really excited for the occasion. Our task was to join a team of other marine enthusiasts in Keyhaven to help spot and identify as many plants and animals as possible at low tide.
For those not familiar with Keyhaven, this fishing hamlet lies at one end of a mile-long, shingle bank called Hurst Spit, which runs south, dividing the Solent waters to create a calm lagoon on the eastern side. It’s fronted by the Keyhaven marshes, a low-lying area of wetland grasses.
Before we started, Caitlin, our organiser, gave a short briefing with instructions on how the survey would unfold and how to record our findings. Caitlin and her team also gave us all the equipment we needed, from ID guides, clipboards, and species identification books, to pens, pencils and even gloves. Everything was explained clearly in a fun and engaging way. We were then put into groups and given positions – one photographer and the rest of us identifiers. After that we were good to go, and set out on the short walk from the car park to the sea.
The low tide was the perfect time for volunteers to gather and comb the area for a species count. After splitting the shore into three zones – upper, middle and lower — using coloured buckets, we started our search on the upper shore, taking our time as we made our way towards the sea (lower shore), and recording everything we found from barnacles and sea anemones to tiny crabs and spongy seaweed, taking pictures to allow others to clearly identify our findings. We were blessed not only with Caitlin’s extensive knowledge but also with fellow volunteer Helen’s vast experience and tools, including a magnifying glass and a collection of small dishes so we could have a good look at really tiny species. With my phone in one hand and a couple of ID guides in the other, I found myself crouching beside tide pools, taking photos and talking to the other volunteers about what the different species might be. It felt like a treasure hunt guided by science, and that’s what this kind of volunteering does – it teaches you to look closer, slow down and really see what’s out there.
As the survey continued, the findings got more and more exciting. A hooded prawn, brittle star, scallop, hairy hermit crab…all new finds were photographed and shared with as many volunteers as possible. Excited voices overlapped as different seaweeds were compared, crabs and shellfish identified, and unexpected finds celebrated. There was a really nice sense of shared discovery throughout, moments of joy, curiosity, collaboration, and the thrill of turning over a rock to reveal something new.
One of the best things about intertidal surveys is the sense of connection and understanding among the volunteers. It’s really enjoyable and also rewarding – surveys like this help scientists monitor the health of our marine ecosystems. By tracking which species are present and where, we can also help scientists better understand how things like pollution, climate change and invasive species may be affecting our coasts, and of course we can learn something new too. It’s real science, and we can be a part of it. There are also no expectations — no experience is required, everyone is friendly and welcoming, and there is always someone around to answer questions. I had a fantastic time identifying different species, taking photographs, and getting to know the other volunteers and their backgrounds. Intertidal surveys are a great way to explore our local coast, learn more about the wildlife there and add to our understanding of this important habitat.
Next time you’re walking by the sea, take a closer look – you might just find your new favourite hobby!
Since its release in May 2025, Sir David Attenborough’s new documentary, Ocean, has been generating discussions on a host of issues related to the plight of our seas. After watching it myself, I can see why it’s provoked such a significant response. It’s a celebration of marine life and a stark reminder of the threats facing the ocean today.
The aims of Ocean are clear – to protect the seas and send a message of hope. The documentary does an impressive job of demonstrating how almost every marine ecosystem is capable of regenerating in months or years. The messaging on the ocean’s resilience, capability for abundance and capacity to bounce back is encouraging. Ocean is also beautifully shot, with incredible scenes of kelp forests, coral reefs and brutal images of bycatch. Like many of Attenborough’s documentaries, I really enjoyed this footage, which captures the beauty and rich diversity of the seas so well while describing the far-reaching effects of losing both and the importance of taking steps to move in the right direction. Attenborough also says that knowledge is important for change. Ocean offers viewers a lot of important information that gives them plenty to think about and discuss.
One issue that the documentary hones in on is the destruction caused by bottom trawling. Footage of the practice and its effects are shocking. There is also a focus on scallop dredging and bycatch-heavy hauls where the bycatch is simply discarded. It’s a dark visual representation of commercial fishing, and the message behind it is powerful. As discussions over the documentary continue, there will undoubtedly be significant impacts on consumer trust towards seafood and public perceptions of commercial fishing.
There is no doubt that this kind of destruction needs to be highlighted, and Ocean raises key questions about how certain fishing methods are carried out and where they occur. However, the portrayal of bottom trawling and scallop dredging could benefit from additional context, and it was a shame that no fishermen or fisheries scientists were featured. Ocean makes many important points about the need to protect the sea and its fish stocks, and the debate around marine protection is essential. However, there was no mention of the people who work on fishing vessels every day or an introduction to the latest research by fisheries scientists. There was also no mention of the many important advances in sustainable fisheries management and fishing practices that are happening today. Through my work, I have come across an array of efforts from seasonal closures, gear modifications, gear that is designed to reduce seabed contact or minimise bycatch, monitoring systems on board vessels, and the use of AI to ensure that the ocean and its inhabitants are free from dangerous items like ghost gear. These are all evidence of a strong commitment to try and improve sustainability and establish well-managed fisheries.
The UK public body Seafish says that in the UK, bottom trawling is managed as part of a broader fisheries management framework to ensure that impacts on fish stocks and marine ecosystems are avoided, mitigated or remedied. Seafish offers information on temporary, seasonal or permanent closures of fishing areas if there are concerns over marine conservation, and highlights the role of trawl fisheries in supporting coastal communities and fishing on grounds that have been fished for generations. Earlier this month, the UK also outlined plans to ban bottom trawling in more Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to protect habitats and support important marine species such as lobster, clams and langoustine. Meanwhile, The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) also monitors bottom trawling worldwide and publishes independent assessments of the impact on seabed habitats.
The UK is also aware of the issues surrounding scallop dredging and is working towards better management in this fishery. Two years ago, consultations were held on a king scallop fisheries management plan in England and Wales. Stakeholders discussed the introduction of dredge restrictions to protect scallop stocks, reduce any impact on the seabed and other marine species, and ensure the scallop industry’s future economic security. There was also a desire for king scallop stocks to be better understood, to identify interactions with the wider marine environment.
Professor Ray Hilborn, a marine biologist and fisheries scientist at the University of Washington, shared his opinion on Ocean in his latest newsletter, which I read after viewing the documentary. He pointed out that although unregulated fishing is a threat to marine ecosystems, so too are climate change, pollutants, plastics and terrestrial runoff of nutrients. He also explained that bottom trawling occurs only in a small portion of the global ocean, almost exclusively confined to continental shelves, and in countries with the largest amount of continental shelf — Russia, Canada, the USA, Australia and the Antarctic – the proportion of area trawled is very small. Most bottom trawling also occurs over more resilient environments such as sand, mud and gravel, he said, rather than more sensitive areas such as deep-sea coral or sponge beds. In fact, research shows that benthic communities in more resilient environments recover quickly, especially when trawling is well-managed.
Hilborn concluded by stating that fishing of all forms, including trawling, can be done sustainably, ensuring food production for future generations.
Credit: Janet Serhan, UnsplashCredit: The Tampa Bay Estuary Program, Unsplash
The UK and US are just two tiny examples of awareness towards the negative impacts of bottom trawling and scallop dredging. There are many more examples and viewpoints, and other nations are pursuing their own measures and working towards global agreements on marine conservation. This is more important than ever in light of this year’s UN Ocean Conference.
It’s worth highlighting that Ocean doesn’t say that commercial fishing as a whole is bad. The documentary is beautiful but devastating, and a reminder to all of us in the seafood sector, whether it’s fisheries or aquaculture, to think further about how we can take even more effective steps than the ones we are taking now. It’s exciting to see, once again, the attention given to critical issues that the ocean is facing. But at the same time, it’s important to remember that scientists, the fishing industry and more have been working hard for many years to improve fisheries and build something more sustainable. Like Seaspiracy, Ocean is a great opportunity for healthy, open discussions on fisheries, regulation and environmental protection, where all stakeholders can come together in a collaborative way.
Fourteen years ago, on March 11, 2011, at 2:46pm local time, an M9.0 earthquake occurred off Tohoku, northeast Japan, on the island of Honshu. It was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the country.
The epicenter was 80 miles (130km) east of Sendai and 231 miles (373km) northeast of Tokyo. Ground shaking lasted for over five minutes in many areas, including Tokyo, while the quake generated a devastating tsunami. In addition to thousands of destroyed homes, businesses, roads and railways, the tsunami caused the meltdown of three nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant. This released radioactive materials into the environment and forced thousands of people to evacuate their homes and businesses.
The damage to aquaculture was severe. Debris was deposited into subtidal zones, crude oil and toxic chemicals were released into the ocean and seaweed forests and tidelands were obliterated. Vessels, aquaculture-related infrastructure such as processing facilities, ice plants and refrigeration, harvesting grounds as well as equipment including farming structures and products were swept away or destroyed. Certain sectors of aquaculture, such as oyster farming in Miyagi prefecture, saw a decline in oyster sales, with seedlings ready for cultivation disappearing, and a huge decline in broodstock stopping all spawning and larval rearing operations. Seawalls and breakwaters were also destroyed, leaving aquaculture areas exposed and vulnerable to storms and further tsunamis, while hatcheries that reared abalone, sea urchin and flatfish for restocking purposes were badly damaged, in some cases resulting in an end to restocking programmes.
The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is a significant problem for Tohoku’s aquaculture today. Some of the biggest negative impacts facing the sector are an increased fear over food safety, seawater contamination and possible long-term radiation threats to food production. But things don’t end there. In 2022, the Japanese government approved a plan to release treated water from the nuclear power plant into the sea, as part of work to decommission the plant. This has faced criticism from local fishing groups fearing reputational damage and threats to their livelihoods, while neighbouring countries have expressed scepticism over the safety of the plan. As of October 2024, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), which owned the nuclear power plant, has released threated water into the ocean five times.
Hope amidst recovery However, amidst the effects of the disaster, there have been encouraging examples of aquaculture recovery, one of which is oyster farming in Shizugawa Bay in Minamisanriku Town, northern Miyagi Prefecture, where oysters have been farmed since the late 1960s.
Despite the difficult position that oyster farmers were in, they were determined to look beyond the destruction. Helped by the fact that the sea floor was in a better condition than anticipated, the farmers saw a chance to rebuild, and embarked on various efforts to promote environmentally sustainable and responsible practices. They decided to scale down the amount of oyster rafts from over 1,000 before the disaster to 300. The idea behind this was to reduce the scale of farming activities and create a system that would allow oysters to be harvested in just one year, to break away from overcrowding and incorporate a more environmentally-friendly type of farming.
The farmers also looked at the space between each raft, and decided on approximately 40 meters. These efforts resulted in significantly increased productivity, allowed farmers to maintain an income and lowered the risks associated with weather events.
“For example, the wind blows the rafts around, but since there is plenty of space now, boats can navigate between them safely even in the wind,” said Kiyohiro Goto of Minamisanriku town’s oyster production subcommittee. “In the past, if a raft was damaged in a typhoon or storm, it would break loose and hit the next raft, causing the damage to spread. But now there is plenty of space. Most importantly, however, the quality of our oysters has improved. They are spread out evenly from one edge of the rafts to the other, and reached 20 grams in 4 months, 56 grams in a year. We can now produce large, fine-tasting oysters.”
Resilience – a key trait This effort is a great example of the power of incorporating sustainable farming practices and the resilience of local people amidst destruction. As my research paper on aquaculture recovery from this disaster gets underway, I’ve been struck during my reading by how often the word resilience is mentioned in articles and research papers. One example is the marine environment. Although the impacts of the disaster were diverse, marine ecosystems generally showed great resilience, something which may serve as an inspiration to local communities as seen in Minamisanriku town. Other papers say that beds of kelp over shallow rocky reefs appear to have sustained minimal damage, which shows that this species can be surprisingly strong against large disturbances, while mature abalone, which live among kelp forests, were also minimally impacted, and sea urchins bounced back faster. These are strong signs of just how resilient nature can be against large disturbances, while the population sizes of these species immediately after the disaster may have been large enough to ensure the survival of a significant number and perhaps also maintain some genetic diversity.
Another paper published in 2021 describes resilience in the fishing hamlet of Isohama, where buildings and facilities disappeared, fishing boats were destroyed, and surviving fishermen and other community members were moved to surrounding villages and towns. Hiroki Takakura, the paper’s author, discusses the notion of a disaster utopia — temporary collaborative behaviour by those affected by an emergency but which disappears quickly after the emergency has passed — and identifies competitive and cooperative practices among fishermen.
Soon after the disaster, local fishermen were able to participate in a government program to remove debris from the coast and reconstruct fishery infrastructure. Through this, they interacted and exchanged ideas with local residents, and worked together in various ways, such as repairing rope and netting. The fishermen also went out fishing on the few boats that remained, and shared any profits equally among them. Takakura describes how this kind of cooperative practice taps into existing practices of group fishing and the resilient mindset of fishermen. Other papers also draw on the resilience of Japanese people, which is largely attributed to such things as community engagement, and collective understandings of the frequent natural hazards that Japan experiences. This kind of mindset can enable individuals or groups to perhaps better withstand the impacts of large disasters and adapt to changing conditions through preparedness measures, strong community ties and the ability to bound back from setbacks.
In less than two weeks, Japan will be marking the 14th anniversary of the March 11th disaster. While reconstruction has taken a long time, and for many a full recovery will never take place, affected areas are slowly but gradually moving on. Japan suffers from many natural disasters, from earthquakes and tsunamis to strong typhoons. While my interest is primarily in aquaculture and fisheries, myself and many other researchers in this field also want to know about the impacts of natural disasters on the marine environment, how it recovers, and whether aquaculture could contribute to that recovery. I hope that my paper will eventually shed light on this, and how Japan, other countries and their aquaculture sectors could be even better prepared for natural disasters.
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