Dominated by the Grangemouth oil refinery and Longannet coal-fired power station, the Inner Forth in Central Scotland might seem like an odd place for a vast area of visionary wildlife conservation. But when the RSPB’s UK climate change team came together on a rainy Scottish morning, the Forth Estuary was teeming with birds. From noisy, piping oystercatchers shooting overhead, to rolling flocks of redshanks, this is an area that’s already rich in wildlife.
Here we are looking fairly soaked.
Jim, smiling at the front, summed up the Scottish approach to weather perfectly when he said it wasn’t as bad as the previous day because it was slightly less heavy rain – I wonder whether Eskimo communities have more words for snow, or Scottish people more words for rain. Anyway, the poor conditions are why this is such a terrible photo.
The RSPB’s Inner Forth Futurescape project plans to improve the prospects and visibility of the wildlife on the estuary. Improving the visibility won’t be hard given both the terrible weather and the decidedly primitive current birdwatching facilities:
The prospects may seem harder to address. Climate change is one of the long-term threats to the estuary and its wildlife. Fossil fuels like the ones processed and burned here on the Forth are locking us in to long-term climate change and its consequences, which for the Forth means sea level rise and a greater likelihood of flooding and coastal erosion.
Without pause in our efforts to slow global warming, the RSPB is tackling this challenge head on and making the most of an opportunity. At our Skinflats nature reserve, we’re trialing a new approach of creating more space for the river at high tide, expanding the existing saltmarsh. Not only could this help ‘soak up’ future flood events better; it is also great for wildlife. We hope in future this can be done on a bigger scale to protect farmland and communities along the estuary. The new saltmarsh habitat is peppered with pools and gravel islands that will soon become ideal habitat for nesting birds like terns and for wintering wading birds. A great place for local people to enjoy the wildlife and natural beauty of a great estuary. And also, perhaps, a place to bring home the need for, and limits to, efforts to adapt to climate change.