I spent much of Thursday listening to experts from around the world tell the Fair Seas Ireland conference how vital the health of our oceans are in the fight against the climate and biodiversity crises.
From overfishing to masses of plastic and other types of pollution we really could be doing better to protect them and the species that live in them for future generations.
I learned that fish are worth more to us alive as they soak up carbon from the oceans. And that even though so many species are on the brink of extinction, we can turn things around by designating marine protected areas that are properly regulated and policed.
Read more: Belfast DJs become force for nature with rave to save our birds
But we really have to take action this decade, according to Al Gore.
In Ireland, the Government is working its way through a Marine Protection Areas Bill expected to go before their cabinet by summer recess.
It aims to designate 30% of the country’s oceans as MPAs by 2030 - with strict protections in place for 10% of their vast ocean area, which is around 10 times the size of Ireland’s land mass.
While the seas of NI flow beside and through the seas of Ireland, our waters obviously come under a different jurisdiction.
So I wanted to highlight here just what’s going on with NI’s seas, starting with our own Marine Conservation Zones.
The Marine Act of 2013 required The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to establish a network of MPAs in our inshore regions to improve conservation of our marine environment.
According to the NBN Atlas we have five inshore Marine Conservation Zones. We also have two a little further out to sea. They are:
- Strangford Lough, Co Down - 30km by 8km
- Outer Belfast Lough - 2.5km2
- Rathlin Island - 90.57km2
- Carlingford Lough - 3.23km2
- Waterfoot, Co Antrim - 0.811km2
- Queenie Corner, Irish Sea - 146km2
- South Rigg, Irish Sea - 143km2
Strangford Lough was our first MCZ. It was originally designated a Marine Nature Reserve in 1995 and later changed to a MCZ in 2013 when the new Marine Act came into force.
Rathlin, Waterfoot, Outer Belfast Lough and Carlingford Lough MCZs were then designated MCZs in December 2016.
Two new MCZs were added in Northern Irish waters in May 2019, both in the western part of the Irish Sea.
The sites have been designated MCZs to protect a range of features including birds, bottom dwelling sea creatures, sea grass and even sand, mud and deep sea beds.
Here are the features being protected at each site:
- Strangford Lough - A range of important habitats and species
- Outer Belfast Lough - Ocean quahog that lives buried in the sediment
- Rathlin Island - Deep-sea bed, black guillemot and geological/geomorphological features
- Carlingford Lough - Philine aperta (White lobe shell) and Virgularia mirabilis (Seapen) in soft stable infralittoral mud
- Waterfoot, Co Antrim - Seagrass bed (Zostera marina) on subtidal (sublittoral) sand
- Queenie Corner, Irish Sea - Sea-pen & burrowing megafauna communities and subtidal mud
- South Rigg, Irish Sea - Moderate energy circalittoral rock, subtidal mixed sediments, sea-pen & burrowing megafauna communities as well as subtidal coarse sediment, mud and sand
The Northern Ireland Marine Protection Area network also includes:
- 6 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) governed by the EC Habitats Directive
- 9 Special Protection Areas (SPAs) governed by the EC Wild Birds Directive - including Larne Lough which is now at the heart of a court battle over deep sea gas caverns
- 19 Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSIs) under the Environment (NI) Order 2002
- 6 Ramsar sites, under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance - also including Larne Lough
I don’t know about you - but it’s appears to be a very complicated system with a lot to consider and I can’t help but feel it could do with some streamlining with some straightforward information supplied on the meaning of each site, its protections and what can or can’t happen there.
There’s also the fact, it’s not all that easy to find out how we are doing on each site and whether DAERA is delivering on its job to protect the features of each site as designated in a whole range of laws, with some of them needing an update.
We are also still waiting on a final Marine Plan for Northern Ireland. In 2018, DAERA consulted on the draft Marine Plan for Northern Ireland and got 70 response from stakeholders. This was then sent to councils in 2021 to gather their views.
But this draft plan was almost 10 years in the making when DAERA published its revised Statement of Public Participation in October 2022 - a document that had already been revised in 2013, 2015 and 2018.
I don’t know about you folks - but that seems like a lot of work with no clear outcome and we are still waiting on something our Government was told to do way back in 2009.
When it’s finished, the Marine Plan will be used by public authorities taking decisions that could affect marine areas in relation to authorisations, enforcement action and anything capable of affecting out marine areas.
As Al Gore says, this decade is vital in the fight to save nature and reduce climate impacts.
I’d love to see civil servants, elected representatives and authorities start treating this dual crisis with the urgency it requires and actually deliver what they have to.
Tin Town gets a climate and tenant friendly upgrade
I love a good news story when it comes to retrofitting homes to save folks money, cut emissions and future proof them.
So a huge well done to the housing Executive for their ongoing efforts to upgrade what they have.
The public agency told Stormont they need £9.2 billion to get 586,000 homes up to an energy efficiency rating of B but politicians are yet to deliver what they need.
But HENI have been taking leaps internally, with their latest efforts leaving residents of nine post-war prefab homes in Bangor feeling a lot more snug through their thermal comfort scheme.
They said work on the bungalows, often known locally as Tin Town, included the cladding of external walls and new roofs, chimneys and doors on all the properties with an overall investment of £316,000.
Tenant Mechelle Davey, who shares her home with her two children, said: “It’s a fantastic job, our bungalow is so much warmer than it was before.
“We’ve just spent our first winter with the new insulation, new doors, windows and roof and it has made a tremendous difference. Before the house was draughty and once the heating was turned off it became cold very quickly.
“It feels like a brand new home and it’s warm and cosy.”
About 2,000 aluminium prefab houses were built across NI in the late 1940s as a temporary solution to the post-WW11 housing shortage and a few still survive today.
Eileen Thompson, the Housing Executive’s area manager for North Down, said: “The work took 18 months to complete but has been very worthwhile.
“Because this scheme improved the overall energy efficiency of the bungalows we were eligible for European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) support.
“We are delighted we’ve been able to make these homes much more comfortable and energy efficient for our tenants.”
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