Over 3,000 Christmas trees were planted in the sand at St Annes during a two-day annual event.
Amy Pennington explains how this helps protect coastal towns from flooding, and why the Fylde coast is so unique.
Amy Pennington explains how this helps protect coastal towns from flooding, and why the Fylde coast is so unique.
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00:00 So we're here to bury Christmas trees. So every year we get recycled Christmas trees donated by local residents
00:07 and lots of people come together to put the Christmas trees in which acts as a great way of
00:12 acting as a coastal defence. You have to get the tides have to be exactly right
00:17 so you have to do it in a time where the low tide coincides with smack bang in the middle of the day to give
00:22 us the most amount of
00:23 opportunity to put the trees in. So we're only here for two days and we've got more trees than ever before so we've got
00:28 3,000 trees to put in over two days, but we've got lots of hard-working volunteers
00:32 so they're certainly up to the task. So the Christmas trees act to build embryo dunes
00:37 so we bury them in at an angle which means that when the wind blows it slows the wind velocity down in amongst the branches of
00:43 the Christmas trees and it deposits the sand in and around the sand dunes and so we can help to build them up.
00:49 So the sand dunes act as a buffer between the land and the sea which means that with climate change and storm surges
00:55 it just makes this area more protected.
00:57 So before we actually took over as a project in this area there was no sand dunes here
01:02 so over the past 10 to 15 years the management techniques that we've used as a project has meant that we've grown the sand dunes out
01:08 by 90 metres. So it's 90 metres of improved coastal defence for the local town
01:13 but it's also 90 metres of improved coastal habitat as well for the specialised wildlife that lives in this area.
01:26 There's many other places around the UK that have used Christmas trees. We're certainly not the first project to start it
01:31 although I think we are one of the longest standing now.
01:33 But you have to have the right environmental conditions.
01:37 So in some areas, well many areas around the UK really, there are road and coastlines
01:42 but we're quite unique on the Fylde Coast in that we're actually regularly accreting sand
01:46 so we're in a net profit of sand which means that we have this little window of
01:49 opportunity to be able to build the sand dunes up and nobody knows how long that's going to last for so it's really important
01:55 that we act now to make the dunes wider and therefore more efficient as a soft sea defence while we've got the opportunity to do so.
02:02 You have to have sand availability, you have to have the space on the foreshore, you have to have the right particle size of sand
02:10 so it's all very scientific. Some areas it'll work and some areas it won't and we're very lucky that it works here.
02:15 And just tell me how people can get involved if they want to for the Fylde Sand Dunes Project?
02:24 So there's lots of different ways that people can get involved. So we have regular work parties where we do practical conservation
02:31 so we can take out invasive species or dig dune slacks or plant marram grasses which helps to bind all the sand particles together.
02:38 So there's loads of different practical opportunities to get involved in.
02:41 We also run lots of different types of events, people can come along to our events and we do education as well and talks.
02:48 We also have guided walks that people can join in on and all that information is available on Lancashire Wildlife Trust's website.
02:55 [wind]