Saving our Solent

WORDS RACHEL BRYAN Project manager, Secrets of the Solent

Bar a brief hiatus for maternity leave, Rachel has project managed Secrets of the Solent since its launch in 2018. She knows the project as well as anybody and over the past four years has proudly overseen some incredible achievements. Her and her team’s efforts have helped to safeguard the future of marine life in the Solent.

Our marine project, Secrets of the Solent, ended in December 2022 a er four years. Its

Shining a spotlight on our local marine wildlife and habitats, Secrets of the Solent has been inspiring people and communities for the past four years.

The project – funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund – has used art, videos, intertidal surveying, talks and volunteering to help people discover the wonders that live in the Solent, bringing them to life in exciting and compelling ways.

To support the long-term protection of the Solent’s precious waters and wildlife, the project has encouraged us all to make sustainable lifestyle choices at home, at work and in our hobbies, while also supporting greater protections for the Solent.

Working in a team of four, my role as project manager has been to guide and support all areas of the project, ensuring they’re fun and impactful while helping to spread our key messages about the Solent to communities, tourists, and businesses.

It has been a challenging role, but one that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed and am very proud to have completed.

1. Marine Champions

The level of interest in our volunteering programme, Marine Champions, was simply amazing.

Our diverse team of 240 champions has supported all areas of the project, from giving talks and engaging with the public to creating a photobook and appearing on BBC Countryfile

Dedicating their time, energy, and enthusiasm, they’ve helped us reach a wider audience in an informative and passionate way. They’ve encouraged others to learn about the Solent’s wildlife and foster an appreciation for it.

Since 2018, our champions and other volunteers have given an astonishing 3,372 hours of their time. The champions have created their own community that supports one another, welcomes new volunteers and, most importantly, wants to share its knowledge with everyone.

We’re truly thankful to all our wonderful champions for everything they’ve done. We couldn’t have made Secrets of the Solent such a success without them.

DID YOU KNOW?

£70,110 worth of volunteer time given to record the wildlife of the Solent.

2. Creative inspiration

We’ve run several creative projects during Secrets of the Solent. Each used a different artistic process and media, but with same overall aim: to connect people with wildlife through art.

In the project’s beginning, we worked with environmental sculptor Trudi Lloyd Williams, who created an immersive sculpture to go alongside our marine litter exhibition.

During lockdown, members of the public knitted, crocheted, and weaved an array of marine species to raise awareness, and then renowned street artist ATM painted a series of six marine murals around the Solent for us.

In our final year, professional portrait photographer Tom Harrison told the inspiring stories of several people who work and volunteer on the Solent, while local artist and illustrator, Hannah Horn, created a giant map of the Solent showcasing all its wonderful wildlife and habitats (far left).

Each of these projects has helped us tell the story of the Solent and captured the imagination of a wide, and often new, audience.

3. Intertidal surveys

What better way to learn about the wildlife living in the Solent than taking part in an intertidal survey on its shores?

Our surveys capture a snapshot of the marine life found in the low, mid and upper regions of the intertidal zone where the land meets the sea.

We run surveys at 12 sites around the Solent each year to build a long-term dataset that highlights population trends (increases or declines in wildlife) and alerts us to the presence of new species.

Over the past four years, volunteers and Marine Champions have helped make these surveys a huge success. In fact, the surveys proved so extraordinarily popular that people had to be placed on waiting lists to join them!

We also offered training in survey leadership, techniques and health and

DID YOU KNOW?

179 people trained in marine biodiversity and intertidal surveying.

safety, and several Marine Champions have successfully taken on survey leader roles.

The more people we have taking part in surveys helps us build a strong evidence base to champion local marine wildlife and influence decision makers. This is a fantastic example of citizen science in action.

Leaving a legacy

While I am, of course, sad that Secrets of the Solent has ended, I’m optimistic for the Solent’s future.

Legacy is an important part of any project, and it’s something we’ve been striving towards since the beginning. It can be hard to quantify legacy, but we know fostering an appreciation in

DID YOU KNOW?

124 young people from five schools and groups taking action for the Solent’s marine wildlife.

something is a great way to garner long-term support and actions that help protect it. I hope our Marine Champions, and everyone the project has reached, will continue their passion for the Solent.

Secrets of the Solent has taught us about people’s deep interest in the marine environment and the different ways we can engage and convey our message. We’ve used this to help design and develop our next marine project, which will continue the journey begun during this one.

Sea change in the Solent

In November 2022, the Trust joined forces with nine other influential organisations on a new five-year project to restore some of the Solent’s most imperilled marine habitats. The Solent Seascape Project is the first of its kind in the UK to initiate seascape-scale recovery.

Seagrass meadows, oyster reefs, saltmarshes and seabird nesting zones will be protected and restored after the project secured a $5 million grant from the Endangered Landscapes Programme (ELP).

By actively restoring and connecting the Solent’s seascape, we’ll provide nature-based solutions to many of the issues currently affecting it and the people who depend on it, as well as helping to fight the impacts of climate change.

We hope you’ll support this new marine project as keenly as you have Secrets of the Solent, and we look forward to sharing some exciting updates as it progresses.

Find out more about our marine conservation work at hiwwt.org.uk/wilder-solent