Out and about with Eric Robinson

摘要

The ever-recurring theme of coastal erosion surfaced again in January (The Independent, 31 January 2005), partly because of the gloomy predictions that the visible effect of global warming for Britain will be sea level rise which will over-top our coastal defences devised after the tidal surges of 1953, The renewed outcry is from The National Trust who are custodians of many miles of coastline, thanks to the success of their Operation Neptune appeal in the 1960s through which they sought to buy whatever lengths came on to the open market. In this way, they now own most of the 500 miles of the South West Coastal Path - that challenge to long distance walkers which can take them from Minehead in the north to Poole Harbour in the south. The Palaeozoic cliffs of Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall offer few conservation risks from the sea, but the suspect Gault-Greensand, and rubbly Chalk cliffs of Branscombe and Beer (Figs 2, 3), and the landslips of Lyme Regis all pose problems which tax the management strategies of the Trust beyond those of other agencies.