Managed realignment for habitat compensation : contributing to nature conservation or furthering biodiversity loss? : England’s implementation of Article 6(4) of the EU Wild Birds and Habitats Directives at the coast

Abstract: In England saltmarshes account for less than 0.5% of the land area, however they have a very high biodiversity value and provide significant economic and social worth. Climate change, continuous coastal urbanisation, and port development are a serious concern for coastal protection planners, city councils and the government. It is a challenge for these decision makers to balance the social, economic and environmental needs of these dynamic areas to ensure sustainable development. Providing habitat ‘compensation’, creating new intertidal habitats to replace those lost to developments and coastal protection schemes via Managed Realignment (MR), has been identified as the principal way to manage the loss of habitat and prevent biodiversity loss. However the few studies that do evaluate the effectiveness of this coastal management strategy indicate that the projects are not compensating fully for the original loss of habitat. Using a detailed literature analysis and purposive semi-structured interviews this paper sought to ascertain why England continues to use MR for intertidal habitat compensation when the science indicates that the projects do not prevent biodiversity loss and may even contribute to it. Furthermore the ambiguity of the legislation and the lack of reporting on past projects has led to confusion about what specifically should be conserved and how best to instigate it. This study addresses the seventh Sustainability Science question and argues that in order to evaluate whether MR can actually preserve nature or contributes to its loss habitat compensation needs to be rigorously defined.