Ireland's 5,800km coastline is under threat from many angles and there is no cohesive strategy to protect it, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
A fleet of jet skis or a dozen "boy racers" turns up at a secluded beach. It is the weekend, you are there with your children, and you are worried about their safety and about the impact of testosterone on fragile habitats. So who do you phone? Try the Garda, if the local station is still open, and you may be told that it is a matter for another authority. Try that authority and you may be lucky to get an answering machine. File a complaint, and you may find yourself involved in a frustrating exercise to track passage of the proverbial buck.
Or take a situation which occurred recently at Cork Harbour. The day after a potentially hazardous chemical spill, kids were jumping off piers and sailing dinghies were out on the water - because the only warning notice was on a website. Our tourism bodies may be happy to use it for seductive advertisements, and 63 per cent of us may be fortunate enough to live within 10km of it - but when it comes to actual protection of our 5,800km coastline, there may be no one quite at home.
"Extremely frustrating" was how Karin Dubksy of Coastwatch Ireland put it at a conference hosted by the Coastal and Marine Resources Centre (CMRC) at UCC last month. Some 14 years before, she and her colleagues had organised a similar event in Dublin Castle, which produced a comprehensive document, entitled Coastal Zone Management: From Needs to Action.
It generated many ideas and much goodwill at a time when a real commitment at governmental level could have made a difference. Pioneering projects such as the Bantry Bay Charter and the Dingle harbour study were initiated. The Department of Marine was said to be reviewing the 1933 Foreshore Act, the basic piece of legislation underpinning activity beyond the high water mark. An inter-departmental committee was established to take a holistic view - and was never heard of again. In the interim, the department, and the vision of former taoiseach Charles J Haughey, have been steadily dismantled.
COASTAL ZONE MANAGEMENT (CZM) means different things to different people. In the Government's case, it has been confined to annual budgetary allocations for hard engineering solutions to erosion. Indeed, in the early 1990s it may have seemed like a very esoteric idea, but as Arthur Martin of Brady Shipman Martin landscape consultants told that Dublin Castle gathering, a formal basis for coastal zone planning in New Zealand was first recognised in the 1970s.
Its absence here has never been more pressing as developers eye up every available inch of valuable waterfront. The pace of littoral development in Ireland is second only to that in Portugal. Even as the British government promises a "right to roam" around that island, community and environmental groups are battling with creeping, and sometimes galloping, privatisation. A lack of understanding of CZM principles and difficulties in demonstrating its "added value" are contributory factors to a "linear, reactive" management framework, according to Valerie Cummins, director of CMRC.
It isn't for want of legislation, as Marcia D'Alton, a member of Passage West Town Council, told the recent UCC conference. The pressure on Cork Harbour represents a "microcosm" for what's happening around the island, she said, relating incidents such as the aftermath of a chemical spill and various efforts to protect a designated protected area. Nor is it for want of agencies to enforce the legislation - and new EU measures such as the Water Framework and Marine Framework directives, which must be transposed into Irish law.
Mark Norman of Taighde Mara Teo estimated that there were eight such agencies, ranging from the Naval Service and fisheries boards to local authorities and the Garda. Several contributors to the conference felt the legislation was unevenly applied - with planned employment of almost 100 officers by the new Sea Fisheries Protection Authority perceived as a further move by the Government to "criminalise" the entire, existing, fishing industry.
And yet there are gaps, as acknowledged by Department of Marine representatives Kieran Burns and Pat Corcoran. They spoke about progress on EU directives, and confirmed that a new review of the Foreshore Act, with emphasis on CZM, is under way. As Dubsky pointed out, communities objecting to planning onshore can have recourse to An Bord Pleanála, but there is no such appeals board for activities inshore or at sea.
"We are in an exceptionally precarious position," she said. "Nearly all protected sites are cut off at the high-water mark, and as the sea level rises, are we going to shift the boundaries? Ireland is the last country in Europe to ratify the Aarhus Convention on access to environmental information, so if the Minister for Marine gives a licence for dredging or dumping at sea, you may make a comment, which the Minister may read. But after that, your only option is the High Court."
Various models were considered by the contributors, and the experience over the Border was outlined by Ken Bradley of the Northern Ireland Department of Environment. CZM had "suffered" there by being "environmentally driven", he said, and might be more effective if driven by the First Minister. Some departments had signed up to it but there was a "fair degree of apathy", and so "communication about its benefits could save a lot of time and hassle", he said.
Was there a need for environmental police? Was there a need for a dedicated CZM agency which would ensure there was a CZM officer, fully appraised of all the relevant legislation, on every 100 km of coastline?
OTHER SPEAKERS AT the conference preferred a "bottom-up approach", as demonstrated most effectively by groups such as the Lacken Community and Development Association in Co Mayo.
The "elephant in the room" was the 2006 Strategic Infrastructure Act,which poses an "enormous threat" to the island's fragile seaboard and to community efforts to protect it, according to Mary O'Leary of the Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment (Chase). The legislation to fast-track "strategic" projects through the planning process represents a further erosion of rights, she argued. Aspirations in relation to CZM could not be transposed into robust planning when public participation could be bypassed in this way, she said.
CDR MARK MELLETT of the Naval Service argued that a system of ocean governance which took account of rich marine resources was a prerequisite. States needed to know what resources they had, and effective monitoring was also required using advanced technology, he said (see panel). This theme of knowledge and communication was further developed during questions when Prof Robert Devoy of UCC contrasted the state of play with the success of this State's smoking ban. "Unless we buy into legislation, it is not going to be effective," he pointed out. "The question is, how do we make the community more involved?"
"We need to do more explaining," Liz Sides of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) responded. The NPWS had drawn up 10 leaflets outlining details on and need for Special Areas of Conservation (SACs), but these were not yet available due to a "distribution problem". Dubsky suggested that inshore fishermen and women - most notably those affected by the new ban on commercial driftnetting for salmon - represented a tremendous educational resource.
Inshore fishers could also help to monitor and patrol their coastal areas, she said. "With their knowledge base, we will be all the poorer if we keep fishermen out," she said.
The final word of the conference was given to Brendan Tuohy, secretary general of the Department of Marine. CZM may not be the "top item" on the current political agenda, he said, but it was up to the contributors present to "broaden the debate" .
Coastal zone management goes with the territory
The Government has recently secured an additional 56,000 sq km of territorial waters, which is equivalent to some 80 per cent of the land area of the State.
It will provide further opportunities for oil and gas exploration - regarded as currently far too "open" in terms of the Government's benign attitude to multinational exploration companies, according to some political interests.
There will also be a responsibility for protection of this environment, but our record on management has not been the best. As
Cdr Mark Mellett of the Naval Service told the UCC conference, Ireland handed over sovereignty on fishing rights to the EU after accession, only to find that "within half a generation" 100 per cent of the economically important fish stocks off the Irish west coast are outside safe biological limits.
Now further moves may be afoot, as the EU draws up a new maritime policy to maximise the economic benefits of "blue Europe". Is a shore-based system of coastal zone management (CZM) then really enough? Cdr Mellett believes a model of "ocean governance", recently adopted by states such as Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada, would take a long-term view on managing and protecting national interests.
Language is the key to engaging an island populace which has tended to turn its back on the sea, he suggested - as in, language that incorporates "property rights". A system of governance comprising property-rights institutions is fundamental to sustainable management of biodiversity, he argued.
Otherwise, fragmented decisions will continue to spawn situations like the threat posed by European trawlers to the future of deep water coral off the Atlantic coast. Such an integrated ocean policy would require the "highest level of political direction", he says. When interests conflict at cabinet level, a "strong centre" needs to "step in to referee".
Full proceedings of the UCC conference are on the Irish Coastal Network (I-CoNet) website, http://iconet.ucc.ie.