Plans to work with a local marine wildlife conservation charity to offer extra protection to Tenby’s sea ecology have been mooted.

Clr. Mike Evans renewed calls for a marine conservation area to be introduced for Tenby at a recent meeting of the Town Council, telling his fellow members that it was vitally important understanding the role of the sea within our heritage, and to conserve what we have.

Following on, members of the Town Council recently welcomed Anna Elliott to their meeting, a project manager from Pembrokeshire Sea Trust, a local marine wildlife conservation charity based at the old Ocean Lab in Goodwick.

Clr. Mike Evans explained that, sitting on an Enhancing Pembrokeshire Fund board meeting recently, his interest had been drawn to an application to the fund made by The Havens Community some 18 months ago. The work entailed working with Havens Community on an audit of the seas around those communities to better understand what is there and to look at conservation in the future.

He was aware of different conservation areas and Cardigan Bay and New Quay were doing similar projects where their main concerns are the bottle nose dolphins and how motorised sea vehicles are impacting sea life.

“Tenby is surrounded on three sides by the sea which is seen to be its greatest asset,” said Clr. Evans.

“We all enjoy where we live, the amenities, beaches, paths, islands but we don’t do a lot about it and we really need to understand; to know where we are before going forward.”

Anna asked what the Town Council were looking to achieve i.e were there any particular worries; were there activities that we feel may be damaging our marine ecology?

“With marine protected areas there are very few restrictions, and this may be a failing as the legislation is not strong enough,” admitted Anna, before showing members maps of three different types of conservation area sites around the UK.

“Marine conversation zones offer the best protection. Skomer is in a marine conservation zone, and there are bye laws, with restrictions on certain types of fishing and speed limit,” explaining that this was the only one in the whole of Wales, but as there are many more around Devon and Cornwall, she believed that these were lacking in Wales.

The next was a Special Area of Conversation (SAC), with Tenby already included in the Bristol Channel designated SAC which protects certain habitats and species of fish.

Anna said it was good that Tenby was already included but it was a problem if people weren’t aware that it exists. She said that dredging was still allowed which was damaging to fishing activities and these are not always managed or monitored properly.

“You also have Special Protection Areas, which are for birds, and again includes Skomer and Carmarthen Bay. Some of these species are also to be found around Tenby so this is a good sign,” she continued.

Clr. Evans said he was aware that St Margaret’s had protection for the breeding pairs of puffins and he was also aware of Skomer and the Laugharne Estuary, but he didn’t know about the Bristol Channel SAC.

He said that Tenby had areas like St Margaret’s and Caldey Island, off the South Beach and Giltar Spit, but as things were changing with more fisheries officers in Tenby and greater marine protection from Welsh Government, what more could be done to offer protection.

Anna explained that the project the Trust was involved with in the Havens was building on a previous project, looking at harbour porpoise.

This had been a successful three-year project which had raised awareness of what people had on their doorstep and led to changes in behaviour.

The project involves recruiting volunteers and teaching them to do surveys to gain a good idea of marine health.

“This is great for the community, great for tourism and great for local school children to become involved in,” remarked Anna, suggesting that working in partnership with Tenby town council, she felt the Trust could put in joint funding bids to cover a whole range of activities for the area, including - heritage, marine ecology, community engagement, volunteering, installation of information boards around town, marine code of conduct, notices etc.

Clr Jim Cornwell said during the summer he believed that seals eat to build up fat reserves to help them survive the winter, but don’t like noise and disruption and therefore move, thereby using up fat reserves they have been building up which mean that they might not survive the winter.

He said he was aware that the use of jet skis impacted our local seal population, and asked if anything can be done to dissuade their use.

The Mayor agreed, commenting that this is one of the problems she and Clr. Laurence Blackhall noticed whilst spending time on Caldey during the summer.

Clr. Blackhall said that there were very responsible, well managed leisure industry sports which were well controlled in Tenby, but there are other areas where use is unregulated.

“Sadly, people can just pop things on the water regardless of their skills. Jet skis are not good for wildlife,” he remarked. Anna said that speed limits and notices could be employed to regulate use.

Clr. Evans said there were lots of positives for the area, with puffins on Caldey, and as a fisherman himself he had noticed an increase of sun fish and basking sharks last year.

It was also noted that Plastic Free Tenby was very active, and the community undertook regular beach cleans.

He felt that Tenby needed to start mapping what it had, to raise awareness on how important marine life was to the town’s heritage.

He suggested the Town Council ‘get the ball rolling’ to create a partnership with Anna and her colleagues to replicate what is being done in the north of county.

Anna said that the Trust was already working with fisherman in Tenby to recycle end of life fishing gear which become litter pickers and sunglasses and would welcome the opportunity to do more in the seaside town.

She said funding would be needed, as it would cost a lot for professional surveys, but active volunteers would be cheaper and faster and as the knowledge base grows this knowledge is retained in the community which is empowering.

The Trust comprised of four trained marine biologists supported by over 30 volunteers in the north, and she was sure there would be volunteers in Tenby who enjoyed getting out in to nature and the fresh air!

Clr. Evans suggested that the town clerk and Anna liaise to draw up a Memorandum of Understanding on what the Town Council can achieve and what needs to be done to meet these goals, and felt that TTC should look at a partnership working out funding bids and getting costings together.