Phil Dyke
Last week we heard the very sad news of the death of former EAI director Phil Dykes who worked for the National Trust. Phil died on the 6th April after a very short illness. Many will remember Phil, particularly those with a coastal context.
Phil was a member of the Europarc Atlantic Isles Board and chaired its Coastal and Marine Working Group for several years, taking over from Edward Holdaway in this role. He was a great advocate for seascapes, the links between land and sea, and the greater recognition of the marine dimension in protected landscape management plans and was instrumental in the production of EAI publications on these themes (‘Making the Connection Between land and Sea’, ‘Connecting Land and Sea’ and ‘A Manifesto for Seascapes’). He made a significant contribution to the Europarc General Assembly in Sweden in 2009.
As the National Trust’s Coast and Marine Adviser, Phil spent 30 years with the Trust, initially on the Isle of Wight and then Cornwall, from where he worked on coastal and marine issues throughout England, Wales and Northern Ireland as well as locally.
Phil remained very active on coastal and marine issues nationally after leaving the EAI Board. His passion for adaptation to coastal change led him to be involved in practical adaptation schemes on National Trust properties as well as active in the media, appearing in television programmes and newspaper articles as well as Trust videos on this topic. He continued to be involved in a range of initiatives until shortly before his death, most recently a coastal-based approached (CoBA), which aims to instigate a similar approach in coastal management to that used for river catchments (Catchment-based approach – CaBA).
Phil will be fondly remembered by so many people involved in coastal and marine management and his energy, knowledge, networking ability and enthusiasm will be greatly missed.
