Guisborough Eco Group welcomed Olvia Dunn from the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust to their latest meeting at the library in Guisborough, where she spoke about the Stronger Shores movement.

Fred Page from the group said that the project is part of the local authority Climate Change Emergency Plan to reduce coastal erosion with the possibility of new jobs, skills and income streams for the nature-based sector across the North East and beyond.

Stronger Shores is concerned that many areas are threatened by flooding, erosion and storms and that climate change will only make that worse. Ms Dunn said that Stronger Shores is now turning to the habitats below the waves, such as seagrass meadows, kelp forests, and oyster reefs for a solution. The project is funded by Defra as part of a £150m Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme, managed by the Environment Agency to develop and test new approaches to help communities become more resilient to the effects of flooding and climate change.

Darlington and Stockton Times: Olivia Dunn, Tees Valley Wildlife Trust presenter at the Eco Group at Guisborough Library

In this area, Stronger Shores is backed by South Tyneside Council, the Tees River Trust, Newcastle and Plymouth Universities, the Wild Oyster Project, and North Sea Wildlife Trusts. Ms Dunn described how local projects involved oyster beds in Hartlepool Harbour, seagrass planting at Teesmouth and Marske, and kelp forests at Skinningrove and the North Sea. The North Sea Wildlife Trust is also trialling seagrass restoration and will be testing the survival of seagrass at multiple locations to monitor the effects of this habitat on the water.

Ms Dunn described how kelp farms could be used for food, drink, dyes, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, and bioplastics. Ms Dunn said that further work was being done to fully understand the value of the ecosystem through coastal protection, recreation, increasing biodiversity, carbon storage and oxygenation.

Ms Dunn then turned to the threat of "nurdles" – small pellets of raw single-use plastics, used in industry, which find their way into puffins, turtles, fish, and sea urchins, and accumulate in time. She said that bioplastics were the new way to produce plastics, which would not harm the environment, but to be careful of so-called greenwashing by manufacturers and producers. Examples of these "nurdles" were passed around the meeting.

Guisborough Eco Group meets on the first Monday evening of every month at the Adult Skills Centre, Prior Pursglove College. Further information is available from Fred Page at hello@guisboroughecogroup.co.uk or on WhatsApp at 07812 416488.