Humber Nature Partnership's Board of Directors Chair - Paul Learoyd, had the pleasure of opening this year's Humber Conference and introducing all our excellent speakers throughout the day.
The first speaker was James Robinson from the RSPB, giving a talk on A World Heritage Site for England’s East Coast wetlands, delivering for the people and wildlife of the Humber Estuary. James is the Chief Operating Officer at the RSPB overseeing operations across the UK. He has spent 25 years in the conservation sector, working on wetland creation and restoration initiatives across the globe. His talk demonstrated the need to deliver collaborative efforts in conservation to address the nature emergency. He went on to discuss one exciting opportunity for collaborative conservation around the Humber. Which is the designation of England's east coast wetlands as a World Heritage site, which will help bring international recognition to the area's contribution to wildlife, in particular wetland birds.
The second talk of the day was from the Environment Agency's Liz Cairns on Water Resources- its availability and impact. Liz has 24 years experience in the water resource sector having worked on planning at both local, regional and national scales. The talk showed water availability around the Humber in different sectors and what underlying issues the Humber faces regarding access to water. However by working collaboratively, we can work to overcome some of these issues and use water more sustainably in the area, allowing the region to develop and grow.
This was followed by two shorter talks on Local Nature Recovery Strategy: collaborative conservation at scale. Presenting the talks were John Pemberton - Sustainability Environmental Manger at ERYC, and Emily Todd - Policy Officer at Greater Lincolnshire Nature Partnership.
After the break, Ove Arup associate Laura Marchant kicked off the talks with a presentation on: Ove Arup: Emerging thoughts on how we deliver sustainable and inclusive growth in the Humber that protects the unique environment. Based in Leeds, Arup are a multi-disciplinary consultancy working around the Humber on a range of different projects. The presentation explained some of the environmental and collaboration opportunities around the Humber that are emerging as part of the Humber Economic Strategy and Investment Plan.
From Wrendale Designs, Hannah Dale gave a talk on Wild Wrendale – the return of beavers to Lincolnshire. Hannah's talk explored the process of turning her unproductive family farm into a rewilding site. As part of the wetland restoration last year, they had the opportunity to reintroduce beavers to the site, to help restore some more natural processes to their water ways. More can be found in Hannah's up-coming book A Wilding Year: Bringing life back to the land, coming out March 2025.
Our last talk of the day was given by Biota Trace CEO Dr Tom Myers on Biota Forensics: environmental DNA as a Tool for Species Detection. Tom demonstrated some of the applications of the eDNA sampling tools Biota Trace have been developing, and the applications of these tools to address cross-sector challenges of data collection.
The Humber Nature Partnership Award
Each year at the Humber Conference, an individual or group is selected and presented with an award to show-case their dedication to the natural environment around the Humber.
This year's awards was presented to Graham Catley for his fantastic work around the Humber. Graham has dedicated a large part of his time going above and beyond in collecting bird surveys across the Humber, providing people with his expertise and promoting the important species of the Humber. Humber Nature Partnership felt that his dedication to the Humber should be celebrated, as he is due to retire at the end of the 2024.
This year we also had a special award for Darren Clark. In recognition of all the hard work during his tenure at Humber Nature Partnership, Darren Clarke has been awarded with a special HNP award. Darren was the manger of HNP (formerly Humber INCA) for over 20 years, working on countless projects around the Humber such as the South Humber Gateway and Green Investment in Greater Lincolnshire.
More information on previous winners can be found here. As the PowerPoints are made available, they will be available under presentations in our resource section.
