#53 Howard Wood - COAST, Community of Arran Seabed Trust

Howard Wood was born in 1954 and has lived on the Isle of Arran since the age of 14 and he's been diving the seas around Arran Island Scotland since 1973. In 1995, he and fellow diver Don MacNeish set up the Community of Arran Seabed Trust (COAST).

Since 2003, Howard has spent the majority of his time volunteering with COAST. He has an extensive knowledge of the marine environment in the Clyde, has created a photographic and video archive of Arran marine life, and was COAST Chair for ten years before stepping down in 2018. 

Howard was involved in writing marine management proposals to the Scottish Government, including the final Arran Marine Regeneration trial proposal of February 2005. These led to the creation of a no take zone in Lamlash Bay, designated in 2008. He was also a key primary source of marine survey records supporting the South Arran Marine Protected Area proposal designated in 2014. Since designation, he has led baseline surveys of the area. Howard has attended many meetings with the Scottish government, Scottish Natural Heritage, Marine Scotland and Fishermen Associations and has also appeared before parliamentary committees on a number of occasions.

Howard received the Goldman Environmental Prize in April 2015 for his work with COAST and was awarded an OBE for services to the Marine Environment in 2015.  Howard and COAST were recently part of the epic PBS documentary Hope in the Water.

In this episode, Mark and Howard discuss working with community to save what they love, methods of preserving aquaculture and the current methods that people use to save marine environments and what it was like to work on the production of Hope in the Water.

Save What You Love with Mark Titus:⁣

Produced: Emilie Firn

Edited: Patrick Troll⁣

Music: Whiskey Class⁣

Instagram: @savewhatyoulovepodcast

Website: savewhatyoulove.evaswild.com

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