SPECIAL measures are needed to reduce the overall loss of valuable grazing marsh habitat in the Suffolk coastal strip as a result of sea level rise, according to the area's new countryside manager.

SPECIAL measures are needed to reduce the overall loss of valuable grazing marsh habitat in the Suffolk coastal strip as a result of sea level rise, according to the area's new countryside manager.

Nick Collinson, who has just taken up his new role as manager of the nationally designated Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), said: “Decisions will need to be taken over what we try to defend and what cannot be defended.”

Where it proved impractical to save marshland areas, there would be a need to try to create similar habitat as nearby as possible, he said.

Mr Collinson, 40, was born at Playford, near Ipswich, where he lived until the age of 18, and has been a resident of Suffolk for most of his life.

Mr Collinson, who is married with one daughter, said he wanted to help communities to reduce their carbon footprint - as part of the local and global response to climate change.

He has previously worked for the Suffolk Wildlife Trust as reserves manager and deputy director but takes up his new role after eight years as head of conservation policy for the Woodland Trust.

His new role involves the care of 150 square miles of the Suffolk coastal strip, including its river valleys and valuable fragments of once widespread heaths.

He will be based at the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Unit office in Melton and will lead the work of the unit and wider partnership to care for the nationally important landscape.

Another recent arrival at the Coast and Heaths Unit is Ms Trazar Astley-Reid, who has taken over from Bill Parker as the Suffolk Estuaries Officer.

Both Mr Collinson and Ms Astley-Reid will play a lead role in implementing the Suffolk Coast and Heaths AONB Management Plan, which was launched in June 2008.