About us - Stronger Shores

Through Stronger Shores, the North East is trailblazing a path for the UK to be a world-leader in tackling the climate crisis. The British coastline has been decimated over the years and important natural habitats have been lost.

Many areas are threatened by flooding, erosion and storms and climate change will only make this worse. If we do nothing, habitats and communities could suffer.

Stronger Shores is turning to the hidden habitats below the waves – seagrass meadows, kelp forests and oyster reefs – for a solution. Experts will learn how these habitats: reduce erosion; stabilise shorelines; and support wildlife. Trialling these practical, value-for-money actions now will save money later.

Our Team

Karen Daglish

Delivery Manager

Karen Daglish

Delivery Manager

Karen Daglish is the Stronger Shores Delivery Manager based at South Tyneside Council. With a background in project and fund management, Karen has worked across the public, private, and charitable sectors in North England on landscape and seascape scale partnership schemes and community benefit funds.

It is Karen’s job to bring the partnership together and make sure collectively we are achieving the project aims. This includes reporting to the main funder, the Environment Agency, managing the budgets, overseeing the monitoring and evaluation, and keeping the project Board up to date with progress.

Keen to still get her feet wet, this role has inspired Karen to further her marine knowledge through distance learning and becoming a qualified scuba diver.

Emily Ross

Project Delivery Officer

Emily Ross

Project Delivery Officer

Emily Ross is the Stronger Shores Delivery Project Officer at South Tyneside Council. Emily works with Delivery Partners across the North East region to help restore our oceans and precious coastline.

Passionate about marine conservation and climate change, Emily has a background in community engagement. As a Project Delivery Officer, Emily covers all areas of the project with a focus on community participation. She has experience working with young people and in community-facing roles and has a degree in BSc Environmental Geography from the University of York.

Emily’s role is vital in raising project awareness and getting people involved in tackling coastal erosion- something that is vital to protect natural habitats, and revive ocean health using nature-based solutions. Her work will help ensure that the project’s aims and objectives are met.

Nicholas Holt

Graduate Environmental Protection Officer

Nicholas Holt

Graduate Environmental Protection Officer

Nicholas Holt is a Graduate Environmental Protection Officer at South Tyneside Council.

Nicholas has a background in environmental project delivery including emergency planning, environmental sustainability, urban planning and environmental enforcement. Nicholas also has a Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Leicester.

Nicholas will support project partners with gathering evidence to help us learn more about how seagrass, kelp and native oysters help with coastal management. Having grown up on the North East coast, Nicholas is keen to use his skills and knowledge to protect the valuable habitats found there.

Bethany Handson

Project Officer

Bethany Handson

Project Officer

Bethany Handson is the Stronger Shores Project Officer, supporting with events, meetings, partner engagement, social media and website communications.

Since starting her role in the team, she has been attending engagement events such as the Hartlepool Tall Ships Races, St Mary’s Wildlife Festival and This is South Tyneside Festival to help engage communities and raise awareness of Stronger Shores.

Bethany has experience of working with external partners such as the Marine Management Organization, the Environment Agency, Natural England and the RNLI. She lives in South Tyneside and is passionate about nature-based solutions which she believes are important for the future of our coastal communities.

Blair Watson

Engagement Officer

Blair Watson

Engagement Officer

Blair Watson is the Stronger Shores Marine Engagement Officer at Durham Wildlife Trust. Blair engages communities with the project, highlighting the importance of kelp, oyster reefs, and sea grass and how they help to protect the North East's coastline.

Blair has a degree in Marine Science, and a Master's in Science Communication. Blair is passionate about working with local people, helping to build a stronger relationship between those he works with and the marine environment, thus helping to protect coastal habitats and build ocean literacy amongst the groups he engages with. He has previously worked at Dynamic Earth, Edinburgh’s Science Centre, where he engaged communities across Scotland with deep-sea natural and historical heritage, and at the Marine Conservation Society, where he engaged local communities with the nearby native oyster restoration project, the Dornoch Environmental Enhancement Project (DEEP).

His work will support communities to be stronger in the face of flooding, erosion and the impacts of climate change.

Glossary

This course is aimed at people new to you are new (or relatively new) to Broad Based

Biodiversity

The variety of living species on earth.

Biodiversity Crisis

The rapid disappearance of species due to human influences.

Blue carbon

Any carbon dioxide that is captured by and stored in the sea or coastal ecosystem.

Carbon Sinks

Something that stores or captures carbon.

Climate Change

A large-scale, long-term shift in the planet’s weather patterns and average temperatures. Climate change we are currently experiencing is directly caused by humans.

Climate Crisis / Emergency

The combination of global warming and climate change and its threat to the planet.

Coast

The land near to the sea. The term ‘coastal’ can refer to that land (e.g., as in ‘coastal communities’), or to that part of the marine environment that is strongly influenced by land-based processes.

Coastal Erosion

Coastal erosion is the wearing away and breaking up of rock and other coastal features such as sand dunes.

Computer Modelling

A program that runs on a computer to create a model or simulation of a real- world feature, process or event.

Ecosystem

A community of animals, plants, or other organisms in one particular area.

Ecosystem services

Natural processes or functions that add value to individuals or society. An example of an ecosystem service is providing food or acting as a tourist attraction.

Ecosystem services

Natural processes or functions that add value to individuals or society. An example of an ecosystem service is providing food or acting as a tourist attraction.

Estuary

Partially enclosed area where salty sea water meets river water.

Flood and Coastal Innovation Resilience Programme (FCRIP)

Stronger Shores is 1 of 25 projects funded by Defra as part of the £150 million Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP). This programme is managed by the Environment Agency and aims to explore new ways of combating the effects of flooding and climate change.

Habitat

A habitat is a place where an animal, plant or other organism makes its home. A habitat meets all the environmental conditions an organism needs to survive.

Innovation

The creation and use of new ideas or methods

Intertidal

The area between the high tide mark and low tide mark.

Kelp

Large brown seaweed found all around the UK coastline. It is actually an algae as it grows on hard rocky surfaces. There are 14 species of kelp in the UK, in the North East the most common species of kelp are….

Native Oyster

A bivalve mollusc (meaning a soft body protected inside a hard hinged shell) that typically live in shallow, subtidal and estuarine habitats.

Natural Capital

Habitats and ecosystems that provide benefits to humans.

Nature Based Solutions

Nature-based solutions are about using the many resources we already have in the natural world to help protect it.

Oyster reefs for example act as a natural filter to help keep our oceans clean, meaning more marine species can thrive.

Similarly, our Stronger Shores projects using kelp forests and seagrass meadows are helping us to reduce coastal erosion and the impact of ocean waves, to create wildlife habitats and to improve water quality, all of which are at increased risk due to climate change.

Resilience

The ability to cope with and recover from setbacks.

Restoration

Restoration involves humans helping to assist the recovery of an ecosystem that has been previously degraded, damaged or destroyed.

Seagrass Meadow

An area of seagrass. Seagrasses are the only flowering plants able to live in seawater. The two species you can find in the North East are Zostera Marina (Common Eelgrass) and Zostera Noltii (Dwarf Eelgrass)

Subtidal

An area at sea that is always covered by water.

Sustainability

Meeting the needs of now, without compromising the needs of the future.

Tidal

An area that is affected by tides. Tides are the regular rise and fall of sea level.

Our Team

Karen Daglish

Karen Daglish

Emily Ross

Emily Ross

Nicholas Holt

Nicholas Holt

Bethany Handson

Bethany Handson

Blair Watson

Blair Watson

Glossary

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