Is the coast clear for oyster-gatherers?
By Hugh Sullivan
Walking the Bulverhythe low tide beach one Monday morning last month, local resident Anna Sabin came across a patch of shining mother-of-pearl oyster shells still stuck to the rocks but with their living parts and top shell removed. She looked up and saw a man and a woman, each armed with a large ‘curry sauce’ bucket, a ‘bag for life’ full of empty bags, and a screwdriver. They seemed intent upon prising every last oyster off the beach. Was this legal?
She got the impression that the oyster-gatherers themselves thought not. When she addressed them they indicated that they spoke no English. But when she took a camera out to take pictures of them at their work, they abandoned it and walked back up the foreshore to the road at Glyne Gap. She followed. They then split up – the woman, who was carrying a full bucket of oysters, zigzagged about a bit, crossed to the garage opposite, walked towards Hastings, and turned off down Bexleigh Avenue as if to keep out of sight. The man hung about in the car park, and Ms Sabin stayed with him, hoping to be able to identify any car which picked him up – until she realised that wasn’t going to happen while she was watching. Besides, he had no oysters with him. There was nothing more to be done.
This was not an isolated occurrence.
In 2019, when Ms Sabin first came to live in St. Leonards, she walked the Bulverhythe beach amazed there was so little life in and on the rocks. But on several occasions she says she came across groups of a dozen or more young people filling buckets with winkles, which were the only shellfish left. Covid put
an apparent stop to this practice during 2020 and 2021, and she noticed then a gradual recovery of life on the beach – even oysters returned. But now the scouring harvesters are apparently back.
The Hastings and St Leonards coastline is designated as a part of the Beachy Head East Marine Conservation Zone. But all that means is that it is subject to potential regulation in the form of conservation byelaws enacted and supposedly monitored by the Sussex Inshore Fisheries
and Conservation Authority (SIFCA). Currently there is “bait and hand-gathering manage-ment” in place for Pagham Harbour, the marine zone west of Beachy Head, and the seagrass beds within Chichester Harbour, according to Angharad Purcell, SIFCA’s Deputy Chief Fisheries and Conservation Officer. A byelaw effective within the Chichester Harbour European Marine Site prohibits the use of towed fishing gears, digging, collection and hand-gathering of marine fisheries resources in specified areas to protect Seagrass (Zostera spp.) and therefore to prevent damage or deterioration to the Solent European Marine Site. But there have been no such restrictions east of Beachy Head.
It seems obvious that if commercial gatherings are banned in certain designated areas, the operators will move along the coast to areas where they are not. And SIFCA does seem to be waking up to the problem. Ms Purcell says that a draft new hand-gathering byelaw was submitted to the government’s Marine Management Organisation and DEFRA for examination and confirmation in September, which will, if approved, establish “new management for the harvesting of marine fauna and flora from the intertidal
zone by hand, or with hand-held implements”. It’s intended to protect sensitive species and habitats, reduce the risks of pollution and reduce the risks of over-exploitation. It will enable the continuation of
hand-gathering but only with defined daily bag limits. Permits will be required for people gathering commercially or in high quantities.
The question remains, though, whether it will be adequately enforced. Kent and Essex police do arrest people, and confiscate their haul and their tools, according to reports attested by Ms Sabin. But it seems that both the police and other enforcement agencies have generally shown more concern at the manner in which the commercial gatherers have been operating, e.g. as alleged modern slavery gangs etc, than at the environmental damage they’ve been causing.
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