Nigel Mortimer
Nigel Mortimer, Estuary Officer
Since April 2008 Nigel Mortimer, South Devon AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) Estuaries Officer (based in Totnes) has taken on a responsibility for the Dart estuary, together with the Yealm, Erme, Avon and Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuaries.
Whilst Nigel is still getting to know the Dart Estuary catchment, his responsibilities remain the same; namely, encouraging and enabling the local community to look after their rivers and estuaries. Nigel’s personal interest is with what lies below the waterline but as he explains, “it’s because it is unseen that we tend to forget about it. My role here is to help educate residents and users alike on what goes on below the surface, how fragile the environment there is and what could be the impact if we damage it. By encouraging others to see and understand the environment of our estuaries, we hope that more people will proactively care for them.”
In a sense, Nigel’s responsibilities are unique. Appointed 12 years ago originally with just responsibility for the Salcombe-Kingsbridge estuary, his activities continue to be funded by a variety of public bodies and organisations, each with an interest or responsibility for conserving this unique part of our coastline.
He originally studied Marine Biology & Ecology at University and then worked as a Countryside Ranger in Scotland. Following two years managing marine aquariums, he was keen to return to the South West (his parents are from Cornwall) to take up his current post. “I was partly interested in the educational aspect of the job and this role gives me a real opportunity to conserve our estuaries by helping to influence our attitudes as well as our actions – whether that’s helping commercial fishermen realise the impacts of diesel on the crabs that they are trying to catch or getting walkers to understand the impacts their dogs do have on wildlife around the estuaries and rivers.”
This education process is through a plethora of public bodies, community groups and forums. “Wherever a media door opens, I have to stick my foot in the gap! - to grab any opportunity to educate all groups of interested people, stakeholders, private or business interests,” says Nigel. Other awareness raising avenues include organising local events and guided walks, talking to pupils in school, WI groups and so on.
Whilst Nigel’s work covers a large area of South Devon he can call upon a wide network of like-minded people in other organisations to help him. This is especially important when he is consulted on the environmental impacts of major projects such as the Noss Marina. “I am not really an expert in anything except knowing who the real experts and specialists are.”
His success in this job is measured partly by the awareness he raises but he can be shocked by people who seemingly don’t have a clue of the impact that their activities are having yet is often heartened when he sees that a level of environmental responsibility has been realised, especially by children. But with a large transient population of visitors it is difficult sometimes to get the message across to those who perhaps do not have the time or inclination to realise the impact of either their sheer numbers or apparent carelessness.
Nigel believes it is important that we all understand the cumulative effects of lots of things happening all the time. He observes that “we worry about the damage done by a major oil spillage, which is obviously catastrophic but way more oil gets into the estuary systems from the many small spillages say that leak from our cars. One car’s drip isn’t the end of the world – it’s the many, many drips of all our leaks together that is the really big problem. Other such issues include boats dragging their anchors, people driving boats through eelgrass beds or the perceived small spillages of diesel from yachts filling up – we may think our actions are insignificant but we forget that everybody else is also doing the same. Such cumulative impacts can be highly damaging over time.”
“But it’s not just the holidaymakers and visitors we must influence. It’s some of the ‘local’ locals too – some who think that because their grandparents did it that way, it can’t be a problem and that they can carry on doing it. Unfortunately it probably was a problem then but only now do we understand how and why. Others are those who don’t have a boat and therefore feel that they don’t have an impact on the rivers or estuaries as they don’t use them directly. In reality, of course they do from what is effectively washed down the sink, detergents, paints washings, sink disposal units, etc. Whilst sewage treatment works do a great job they often don’t magically remove the problem - they often just break it down.
Instead, we should try to limit our waste before it hits the sink, it can be almost silly little things like buying phosphate-free washing powders – there’s currently an issue of “red tides” where the high level of phosphates in the water may be fertilising massive blooms of red coloured plankton especially during the warmer and lighter summer months. In the late summer in Kingsbridge, the water was almost a burgundy-red colour – there’s always some concern that such blooms could be toxic but our primary concern is that the decay of a bloom could conceivably suck the oxygen from the water, with problems for the local fish. Thankfully this doesn’t seem to be happening and it may never will but there is that possibility and it is an example of a potentially ‘positive cumulative impact’, if we all made a tiny individual effort to change, we could make a really big difference!”
In future issues of By The Dart, Nigel will be addressing some of these issues in more depth.
First Published December 2009 By The Dart