How north Devon became the UK's first world surfing reserve

On a bright and sun­ny spring day in Woola­combe, a beach resort town in north Devon, three men are stand­ing on a clifftop singing sea shanties while surfers ride waves that peel gen­tly in the ocean below. It’s an ebul­lient scene; the per­form­ers are regal­ing a crowd of over 100 well-wish­ers who have gath­ered to cel­e­brate the inau­gu­ra­tion of the UK’s first world surf­ing reserve – an 18 mile stretch of coast­line run­ning west from Lyn­mouth, then south through Croyde to Saunton.

North Devon joins a list of 11 glob­al­ly-revered spots that includes Mal­ibu and San­ta Cruz in Cal­i­for­nia, Australia’s Gold Coast and Todos San­tos in Mex­i­co. Along­side the qual­i­ty and vari­ety of surf breaks, which range from expert bar­rels to the kind of mel­low waves loved by long­board­ers, it’s an incred­i­bly beau­ti­ful part of the coun­try, all green rolling hills, dra­mat­ic clifftops, sea views and pret­ty vil­lages with not a Star­bucks or big chain super­mar­ket in sight.

From the pri­ma­ry school kids sit­ting in neat lines at the front, to the teenage surfers skulk­ing at the back, to the old­er cou­ples in Hawai­ian shirts and the Chief Exec­u­tive of the coun­ty coun­cil wan­der­ing about in a suit, the event feels part surfers’ shindig and part vil­lage fête. This feel­ing only inten­si­fies when Kevin ​“Cook­ie” Cook, a retired teacher, parish coun­cil­lor, chair­man of Woola­combe Surf Life­sav­ing Club and the dri­ving force behind the Surf Reserve des­ig­na­tion, takes to the stage to ask if any­one has seen his wheel­bar­row. It’s been miss­ing since they dug a hole in the grass to install the com­mem­o­ra­tive plaque and stat­ue, which now sits behind a pair of red vel­vet cur­tains, a few days ago.

The idea for north Devon to apply for World Surf­ing Reserve sta­tus came up in 2016, when a group of locals were sit­ting amongst the buck­ets and spades and chintzy post­cards at Puts­bor­ough Beach Café, won­der­ing how to spend a £2,000 dona­tion. Sug­ges­tions were at the lev­el of order­ing some new rash vests for the surf life­sav­ing club and beach cleans when Cook­ie, who shaped his first board in 1968 and has been surf­ing in the area ever since, urged every­one to think bigger.

Aware of the threats that surf breaks face glob­al­ly, from coastal ero­sion and sea lev­el ris­es, to devel­op­ment along coast­lines and sewage and plas­tic pol­lu­tion, the group want­ed to pro­tect their local surf ecosys­tem as best they could while rais­ing aware­ness of the ben­e­fits that surfers and surf tourism bring to the area. It’s a bat­tle Cook­ie has been fight­ing since the 1970s, when surfers were seen as hip­pies and drop-outs. While surf­ing may be seen as more accept­able today, espe­cial­ly since its inclu­sion in the last Olympics, the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits it brings to an area, often referred to as ​“Sur­fo­nom­ics”, are rarely acknowl­edged. In 2008, researchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth cal­cu­lat­ed that the sport brought in £52 mil­lion annu­al­ly and 1,500 jobs to the local econ­o­my. This fig­ure would sure­ly be high­er today.

World Surf Reserves, which are des­ig­nat­ed by inter­na­tion­al non-prof­it Save the Waves, are intend­ed to pre­serve surf breaks and their sur­round­ing areas by recog­nis­ing and pro­tect­ing the key envi­ron­men­tal, cul­tur­al and eco­nom­ic attrib­ut­es they bring to coastal com­mu­ni­ties. The con­struc­tion of a sea wall in Madeira ruined the world-class break of Jardim Do Mar in the ear­ly 2010s, while 20 waves are under threat from infra­struc­ture devel­op­ment in the Mal­dives.

A com­mit­tee of north Devon locals was formed to apply for World Surf Reserve sta­tus, which, along with Cook­ie, includ­ed sus­tain­abil­i­ty man­ag­er and Reserve co-founder Adam Hall, teacher Rob Whit­ney, for­mer Surfers Against Sewage chair­man Ben Hewitt and Yvette Cur­tis who found­ed Wave Wahines, a north Devon surf club for women and girls from all communities.

The inclu­sion of Cur­tis, a non-expert surfer of colour, on the com­mit­tee was sig­nif­i­cant as north Devon has some chal­leng­ing waves – Croyde at low tide, for exam­ple, along with spots which can be more mel­low, such as Saun­ton. For the Reserve, achiev­ing pro­tect­ed sta­tus was nev­er about cre­at­ing an exclu­sive space for advanced surfers. Inclu­siv­i­ty has always been at the core of their mis­sion, as embod­ied by their strapline: ​“Waves For All For­ev­er.” Sea swim­mers, stand up pad­dle board­ers, body­board­ers, and peo­ple sim­ply splash­ing about in the white­wa­ter are just as wel­come as surfers.

“We don’t need to exclude peo­ple by giv­ing the impres­sion it’s only for elite surfers, it’s for the whole com­mu­ni­ty to use and access too,” says Cur­tis. ​“Demo­graph­i­cal­ly about 10% of north Devon iden­ti­fies as non-white, but we also want peo­ple of colour to feel wel­come to trav­el here. The Surf Reserve helps to cre­ate an inclu­sive area for all to enjoy and feel a part of, and it increas­es the num­bers of those who love the oceans and want to pro­tect them.”

For Hall, cre­at­ing more envi­ron­men­tal advo­cates is a key part of the ini­tia­tive. ​“It’s a frag­ile area. It’s not a giv­en that you turn up to these places and they will always be like this,” he says. ​“If we can start get­ting peo­ple to fall in love with north Devon and high­light the fact that actu­al­ly there are some threats, and those peo­ple go back to their com­mu­ni­ties wher­ev­er they are and start talk­ing about envi­ron­men­tal issues, then we’ve raised that aware­ness and got more peo­ple on board. You don’t have to sit on the side­lines and watch the places you love become deplet­ed. You can get involved to pro­tect them.”

Surf Reserves are not with­out their con­tro­ver­sy. Puer­to Rico was des­ig­nat­ed a Reserve but nev­er inau­gu­rat­ed, alleged­ly after Amer­i­can expats – a pow­er­ful real estate force on the island – blocked the move, while Europe’s first Reserve in Eri­ceira, Por­tu­gal, was over-pro­mot­ed by tourism author­i­ties, bring­ing too many vis­i­tors to its breaks. North Devon isn’t with­out these con­cerns, either. Last August, a fire caused by a dis­pos­able bar­be­cue blazed through 200m of pre­cious wildlife habi­tat at Bag­gy Point. Does Hall wor­ry the des­ig­na­tion will bring more peo­ple to what is essen­tial­ly a frag­ile ecosystem?

“It’s not a secret,” Hall says. ​“Peo­ple are already here. The ques­tion is do we just let that hap­pen organ­i­cal­ly with no schemes in place, or do we high­light the fact that peo­ple are com­ing to a spe­cial area and they need to respect it and be advo­cates for the envi­ron­ment? It’s not a pro­mo­tion­al activ­i­ty, it’s an envi­ron­men­tal activ­i­ty to man­age the amount of peo­ple that are already here.”

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, north Devon’s nat­ur­al beau­ty also makes it a hotspot for sec­ond homes and hol­i­day lets, with over half of local prop­er­ties not being used for per­ma­nent res­i­dence accord­ing to a coun­cil report.

“It is a touch out­side of our remit, as we’re focused on the surf ecosys­tem,” Hall says when I ask if the Surf Reserve will have any pow­er over hous­ing. Instead of oper­at­ing in a silo, the Surf Reserve is a coali­tion of organ­i­sa­tions and com­mu­ni­ties and the core team are now work­ing with a broad­er Local Stew­ard­ship Coun­cil includ­ing North Devon Dis­trict Coun­cil, the Nation­al Trust, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ply­mouth, Surfers Against Sewage, Surf­ing Eng­land, and Plas­tic Free North Devon. ​“But we do talk about overde­vel­op­ment of the coast and how that could ruin the expe­ri­ence of surf­ing here, and we talk about inclu­siv­i­ty and access,” he says.

While the Surf Reserve has no pow­er to insist upon access, one of the main things this des­ig­na­tion brings is lever­age. ​“The RNLI are on our Local Stew­ard­ship Coun­cil and they’re con­cerned about the safe­ty of surfers and also putting their life­guards at risk dur­ing res­cues,” he says. For exam­ple, at Down End Point – a wave in the Reserve which can only be accessed via pri­vate land dur­ing big swells as it’s too dan­ger­ous to pad­dle out of. ​“The only safe way out of the water is through a lit­tle beach and then up through pri­vate land,” he says. ​“The cur­rent home­own­er has been bril­liant over the past cou­ple of decades and always lets us use that land, but the prop­er­ty is now for sale so there are some con­cerns about the future.”

Sewage, too, is an ongo­ing issue. Pop­u­lar win­ter surf spot Combe Mar­tin is one of the most pol­lut­ed beach­es in the coun­try, and water test­ing and mon­i­tor­ing are inad­e­quate. Hall says that it’s hard to know exact­ly how many of the region’s sore throats, ear infec­tions and stom­ach bugs are down to sewage, but for locals it’s unac­cept­able that raw sewage is being pumped into a World Surf­ing Reserve full stop, with pol­lu­tion con­sis­tent­ly top­ping sur­veys amongst res­i­dents as to which prob­lems they would like tack­led first.

“The cli­mate cri­sis and bio­di­ver­si­ty loss are the biggest threats [to the local surf ecosys­tem],” Hall says. ​“But sewage is the most promi­nent threat that we can fix. It’s a choice.”

Siyan­da Hewitt, a local teenage pro surfer, who is also the UK’s first com­pet­i­tive Black surfer, tells me that he and his friends are frus­trat­ed by sewage releas­es in the area. Sit­ting on the grass at the inau­gu­ra­tion, he voic­es his beliefs that the gov­ern­ment isn’t tak­ing the prob­lem seri­ous­ly enough and has been bow­ing down to water com­pa­nies for too long. ​“This is the voice of coastal com­mu­ni­ties ris­ing up,” he says. ​“We want to pro­tect the area and its extra­or­di­nary surf breaks.”

Hewitt also adds that the Surf Reserve has brought younger and old­er peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er. ​“Peo­ple want­ed to get involved and help,” he says, ​“it brought the gen­er­a­tions together.”

His dad Tom, who found­ed the char­i­ty Surfers Not Street Chil­dren in South Africa, which helps divert young peo­ple away from drugs and street crime and into surf­ing, has seen first-hand the ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits that surf­ing can bring, espe­cial­ly to young peo­ple. ​“These surf breaks need pro­tec­tion as they give young­sters the chance to be ath­let­ic and have fun, which keeps them away from oth­er less healthy youth expe­ri­ences,” he says.

In the future, the Local Stew­ard­ship Coun­cil plans to take the Sur­fo­nom­ics work a stage fur­ther by using data from the wave fore­cast­ing app Sur­fline to cal­cu­late how much mon­ey each sin­gle day of good waves brings to the local econ­o­my. By cross-ref­er­enc­ing that with data from the Surfers Against Sewage app on real-time sewage releas­es, they’ll also be able to map the exact eco­nom­ic cost of sewage dump­ing in the region. This will heap even more pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment and water com­pa­nies to pro­vide solu­tions to a prob­lem which has incensed the coun­try and cost the Con­ser­v­a­tives at the bal­lot box, and may prompt oth­er coastal resorts to fol­low suit.

For now, spir­its are high. Before the local school kids pull back the cur­tains to unveil the plaque, Cook­ie does anoth­er round of thank yous and tells the crowd he believes this com­mu­ni­ty vision is replic­a­ble all around the UK, urg­ing peo­ple to come togeth­er to pro­tect the coastal areas they love using the ener­gy they’ve tak­en from spend­ing time in the sea. He then cites a line from Heath­cote Williams’ 1988 poem ​“Whale Nation,” while ges­tur­ing to the end­less ocean views behind him: ​“From space, the plan­et is blue…”

Sam Had­dad is a free­lance writer who edits the newslet­ter Cli­mate & Board Sports.

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