Permission Granted.

On the 29th October 2009, I had a meeting with Donald Martin, Cornwall County Councils Environmental Manager on Porthtowan Beach. The permission for the Beach Clean was granted. I did ask about putting one of my uncles marquees up and again this was granted. Penrose Marquees.


Whilst we discussed the Beach Clean, the science section of the project arose. This was why Donald was keen to meet. The council has a number of initiatives that could maybe tie into my project. The GPS mapping of the area could tie into a coastal management strategy that the council wants to start as soon as possible. The Dunes as i mentioned in a previous blog are a persisiting problem as they are initially man made. The council wants to construct a management team wereby i will be involved in collecting the data and producing the strategy. The pollution also ties into this as much of what exists on the beach, such as the plastic pellets come from the over flow systems that lie further up stream. The strategy as a whole will more than likely run out side my project, but i am very keen to follow this oportunity up.
Donald wants to contact the Falmouth Marine School and arrange a long term project to coiside with the college, in producing the strategy. This is yet to be arranged.

Science Based Project.

As this is a research project I am focusing my science based skills on a 3D monitoring survey of Porthtowan beach. The sand banks and the dunes shift a great deal here due to several different erosive factors which I will be looking into. From the data gained I will measure the height gain or loss (elevation change) over a 6 month period and therefore hope to be able to predict the shape of the beach in the future and inform the local environmental management of the damaging effects that could arise. The software used will be Surfer 8.

Marine Science / Contemporary Art

With the interest of the school, I then approached two local artists, Ian Penna and Georgina Maxwell, who have previously produced pieces of art using beach litter.
Ian Penna who is formally of Treleigh is very keen to engage with the school. He has mentioned that a piece of his art work called ’Garden, Skip of life 2009’ could be placed at Porthtowan to bring attention to what I am doing.
He has Given a few ideas for the art work that could be created where he has suggested a large beach clean up rubbish castle represented in the form of the standard kids sand castle or maybe a large rubbish bucket and spade, or found objects made to represent marine life/ biology. If there isn't allot of rubbish then he can improvise with reconfiguring what is normally found on a beach such as sand and stones.
Georgina Maxwell is renowned throughout Cornwall for her pieces of art relating to beach litter www.georginamaxwell.com, and is also keen, however funding for her time may be a slight problem. This is something that I will try to over come, with some sort of fund raising.
She has also suggested that a marine plastic installation could be built then hung in the school.

Treleigh School

After a couple of meetings with the school, they have agreed to go ahead with the scheme and have incorporated into their curriculum, a terms worth of work based on the local coastline and habitats within it being affected by the litter. A day has been arranged for the 28th March 2010 where the children of years 3 and 4 will carry out a beach clean and spend the day on the beach doing various activities such as sand castle crafting and kite building. This is a time of year when the beach isn’t overly used but this is another opportunity for the local people to use what they have on their doorstep.
I have a third meeting on the 12th Jan 2010 with the year 3 and the year 4 teachers, where we are going to go over a few more details of the day and the term leading up to the beach clean. Here is the Treleigh School link http://www.treleigh.cornwall.sch.uk/ .

Marine Conservation Society.

As a marine scientist i am being forever informed of the growing problem that we face in Cornwall of beach litter around our coastline. Unfortunately many of the Cornish residents aren’t aware of how bad it is and the level of damage it is doing to our marine wildlife. With this being an issue to hand I feel the next generation are the ones that are going to experience the damaging and irreversible effect of the problem. So i have taken to approaching Treleigh School between Chacewater and Redruth where my son attends, and getting them involved with the Adopt a Beach Scheme http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/ . Ran by the Marine Conservation Society http://www.mcsuk.org/. They are a charity committed to looking after the coastal areas and the wildlife of the UK shores whilst campaigning for cleaner seas and beaches. They have been established for 20 years now and widely encourage all ages to take an energetic role to avoid any more damage to the coastline. Using scientific research and local campaigns they stride towards a cleaner environment.