Weather forecasting must be a thankless task. This week frosts matured into snow. Snow that presenting a wintery countryside scene for a day before returning to cold but not freezing conditions. Mixed in with this came flood warnings. The potential of a serious surge tide coming down the North Sea and overtopping sea walls as happened in 2013.
Memories of the great 1953 floods are still alive in older generations in the area. These recent surge tides are testing our sea walls even though they are much higher at 5m than they were the 1950s. It was with mixed emotions as I walked our wall on Wednesday this week, wondering how we would react to the sea overtopping these walls and flooding the farm. The predicted tide level was the highest in the month at 4.25m. Predicted levels are calculated forecasts. Tides, like weather are subject to many variables of the regional/local climatic conditions. Surge tides are created from this soup mixture of conditions and form a body of water that increases the tide height over the predicted level. The flood warning that we had for mid week this month was based on a real surge but the one thing that turns a incident into a disaster is timing. Thankfully the surge came down the coast adding nearly a metre to the height of the tide – but it reached us at the time of normal low tide. A huge sigh of relief and another escape from the wrath of nature.
This tidal event came in the same week as a GeoEssex event at the new visitor centre on the Naze at Walton on the Naze. This brought together amateur geologists who have a deep knowledge of our local area. This had a real relevance for our farm as the cliffs on the Naze present a natural barrier that holds the North Sea out of our low lying land. These cliffs are full of fossils and their complex geology has gained them the designation of a Geological Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The downside of this is the issue that geologists want to see the cliffs continually erode so that the geological strata laid down millions of years ago are exposed to reveal fossil content providing research material that indicates our past deep history.
To many local residents, the concept of allowing the cliffs to fall into the sea is upsetting. Our local landscape is special. This erosion has been happening for thousands of years, but now it seems that our generation will see the last of the Naze disappear altogether if nothing is done to slow the process.
The GeoEssex event was therefore one that could have been a standoff between those who want to see “our” cliffs disappear, and those who was to retain their local landscape heritage.
As it turned out, it was a fascinating day. Fossil collecting on the Naze had started as long ago as the 12th century. The Naze is renown for fossil shark’s teeth, but the early collectors were finding the remains of hippopotamus; rhino; tiger and elephant. Animals of a semi tropical fauna completely alien to our recognition of our environment today. There have been internationally important collections of bird fossils sourced from the clays beneath the cliffs – revealed only because of the erosive tides. The whole concept that this area was originally part of the floodplain of the ancient rivers Thames and Medway when the North Sea was still land is hard to grasp. But presentation after presentation revealed more detail on the size, scale, timeframe of the development of these ancient landscapes into how we see our land today. As a result I can now see our desire to preserve our landscape differently.
Nature is a powerful agent – as we saw this last week with the threat of the surge tide. It is dynamic. Over millenia our land has seen sea levels rise and fall hundreds of feet in depth, completely changing the landmass we know today. This is not something we can change. We can try to retain the bits we cherish with rock sea defences but in reality, over the next few thousand years natural forces will determine the size and shape of our country.
But having said that – reality is now. The heartening thing that came out of the GeoEssex event – as with the Oxford Real Farming conference the previous week, was the way that people of different opinions come together to discuss, debate and find ways of working together for a common good.
The new year has already started in a similar theme in the sea buckthorn community. Sea buckthorn is largely know for its berries, but growers have long known that the leaf contain rich and valued nutrients. Across Russia, China and the Himalayan region the leaf has traditionally been used for tea. In September 2016 I was asked by german colleagues to dry the leaves from my Siberian, Latvian and German varieties of sea buckthorn plants so they could be analysed. This project was to assess their polyphenol content compared to leaves from other growers. The results are now developing and indicating that the high levels of nutrients are similar from different locations. The challenge now is to see how we can use the leaves. Although leaves have been used for centuries evidence needs to be provided to satisfy both UK and EU Regulation that leaf is safe and offers the health benefits suggested from traditional use . As with the group co-operation that has formed from the GeoEssex meeting on the Naze – so sea buckthorn growers, processors and researchers from here; northern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, China and US are coming together with knowledge from experience and research in true co-operation. It is what humans do best.
I hope that in the political world those who will be deciding future relationships between countries across the world will also find a similar spirit of co-operation. We might not be able to change the course of nature, but surely we can ensure that we can live together and make change work for the better.
