A Question of Ownership?

We shall never understand the natural environment until we see it as a living organism. Land can be healthy or sick, fertile or barren, rich or poor, lovingly nurtured or bled white. Our present attitudes and laws governing the ownership and use of land represent an abuse of the concept of private property.... Today you can murder land for private profit. You can leave the corpse for all to see and nobody calls the cops.

Paul Brooks; The Pursuit of Wilderness: 1971

• Owning the coast; protection and protest

Lyme Regis: Is the Crown ignoring its responsibility?
The Crown Estate, through archaic property laws and doctrine owns the foreshore and seabed to 12 nautical miles. By definition the word suggests that with ownership comes a responsibility to that which one owns. If, say someone was dumping silage on your land, you the owner would want to prosecute the culprit, and protect your land from it happening again.

At Lyme Bay on the Dorset coast, scallop dredging is having a devastating effect on a colony of Pink Sea Fans. The Pink Sea Fan is a protected species, due to its rarity. (Wildlife & Countryside Act, 1981) The bay had previously been the site of a voluntary no-take-zone, where an agreement between campaigners and fishermen closed off an area to dredging in the hope that the area might begin to recover. However, it was soon acknowledged that the fishermen were beginning to ignore the ruling, and were dredging in the closed area.

The Crown, owns the seabed, and all plant life attached to it; therefore the Crown is surely responsible for the protection of it? So, by doing nothing, is the Crown forfeiting its responsibility as owner, and if so, why? The Crown owns the majority of the coastal zone, and if their ignorance of their responsibility at Lyme Bay, is just a taster of their managerial approach to their property, is this the sort of organisation the UK needs to manage one of it most valuable assets. The seabed and foreshore supply the Crown with an income; surely in return, the Crown should offer some protection?

Crown Estate website

• National Trust Neptune Coastline Campaign
  

Since 1965, the NT has been buying areas of the UK coastline in a bid to preserve and maintain their health. It currently owns 40% of the UK coast, and is it's biggest conservationist.

Map: Australia increases her size
Article: Australia increases her size
Bonanza for oil and gas
Oil and Gas continued
The race for the Arctic