#695: Arran Coast MPA

The Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST) is a grassroots organisation that has been working tirelessly for over 25 years to ensure the region’s marine environment thrives.

Amongst a host of pioneering conservation work, they were responsible for the creation of Scotland’s first, and the UK’s only, community-led No Take Zone (NTZ), which has allowed almost 375 football fields worth of ocean habitat in Lamlash Bay to be entirely protected from all fishing and extraction.

The NTZ now sits within the South Arran Marine Protected Area, established in 2016, which excludes scallop dredging and limits prawn trawling activity. These protected areas encourage natural regeneration of habitats and the recovery of wildlife populations.

To read more or support COAST, please visit their website.

COAST Discovery Centre,

Old Pavilion,
Lamlash,
Isle of Arran,
KA27 8LS

#536: Beach Pebble Guide

Came across a cracking little guide to the pebbles on the beaches of Scotland (in particular) by the Scottish Geology Trust.

It's a free PDF download from this link.

Scottish Geology Trust ©2021 This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence. 

#48: Suffolk Coast and Heaths - AONBs

Suffolk has an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty called the Suffolk Coast and Heaths.

Follow the Twitter feed here.

Explore the Map of Mystery! 🗺️

An alternative map that allows you to enter a wide world of wonder, whether a visitor or proud resident - there is much to discover from our past and present

This is just part of it - view & download the full map

👉 https://t.co/faN3EKEatF pic.twitter.com/flUULXq5P8

— Coast & Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (@SuffolkAONB) May 22, 2023

You can download the Map of Mystery from the link above, or here (PDF download)

It's a lovely piece of work. Here's an extract:

It may be worth considering how to make the most of your local AONB.

You can find it using a map from the Landscapes for Life website. 

This is an interactive map which has details of the UK's 46 AONBs. 

Students might usefully be allocated an AONB each to explore the particular landscape features, along with the biodiversity that it contains, and projects which are being undertaken to preserve its natural beauty.