On 25-28 October 2012, representatives from the Trilateral Wadden Sea Cooperation had the opportunity to visit the Wash estuary. Representatives from the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Agriculture and Innovation of the Netherlands, the National Park Administration Lower Saxon Wadden Sea and the Common Wadden Sea Secretariat met corresponding British colleagues from the ministry to local fisheries, management and NGOs for an information exchange and site visits to explore options to intensify the cooperation. The visit was organized by Natural England.
Photos: Excursion to the Wash. CWSS.
For the period 1998-2001, the joint activities focused on information exchange concerning monitoring in connection with the Habitat Directive and management of Blue mussels. Contacts on expert level were initiated in 1999 and 2000 between English Nature, the Eastern Sea Fisheries Joint Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture and Nature Protection (LNV, Groningen) and Texel (Alterra) to discuss the experiences with shellfish management in the Dutch Wadden Sea.
- In October 2001, a delegation from English Nature, the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Eastern Sea Fisheries Joint Committee attended the Scientific Wadden Sea Symposium in Groningen. During the symposium, a meeting with monitoring experts was organized to discuss a common research project concerning the mussel bed restoration possibilities.
- In November 2000, a Conference about the experience in the UK with the implementation of the Habitat Directive was held in Edinburgh attended by over 300 persons, also from the Wadden Sea States. The experiences concerning the establishment of management plans and monitoring schemes to meet the needs of the Habitat Directive on 12 marine sites in the UK were discussed at the 3-day conference and at a one-day monitoring workshop. Valuable knowledge could be gathered during the project concerning monitoring and management, which can also be applied in the Wadden Sea. On the other hand, the experiences in the Wadden Sea concerning the Wadden Sea Plan and the TMAP were presented and regarded as an important input for the UK.
- In April 2000, Dutch, German and Danish experts from administration, research agencies and fishery organizations attended the Wash Forum Conference. The CWSS presented the Wadden Sea Plan and the QSR 1999 during the Conference.
- In March 1999, a meeting was organized in Amsterdam to exchange information on Ensis and similar fisheries (e.g. Spisula) and mussel spat settlement with participants from English Nature, the Eastern Sea Fisheries Joint Committee, Prof. Bannister (CEFAS) and experts from the Netherlands and Schleswig-Holstein (universities and administrations). The results could be incorporated in the preparation of the Wadden Sea Plan project 7.2.2 (Spisula project) by the trilateral project group.
- In February 1999, representatives from English Nature attended a TMAG meeting in order to enhance the information exchange regarding monitoring, especially concerning subtidal monitoring and monitoring of Blue mussel beds.
In the period 1995-1997, joint activities of English Nature (EN) and the Wadden Sea Cooperation were carried out on the exchange of information on shellfish management (two workshops in 1996), birds (”Twite population and habitat management”, project in 1996/1997) and eutrophication (one-day seminar in 1995).