By next year Co Donegal will be offered a scientifically-constructed plan to protect and manage some of its finest beaches and dune systems.
There's a lot of sand in Donegal. The county is custodian to more than a quarter of the entire sandy coast of the combined Irish counties. This not only constitutes a prime recreational and landscape asset but also contains many unique natural habitats and ecological systems.
Some of these precious beach and dune systems are under threat, both from natural shoreline erosion and from human activities such as rising demand for coastal recreation and the growth of tourism and development pressures.
As part of a Europe-wide demonstration programme aimed at designing coastal zone policy, a joint project between Donegal County Council and the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Co Derry, is nearing fruition.
It aspires to supplant the fragmented approach to beach management with locally-agreed plans that balance the demands of development, utilisation and conservation.
Participants in the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties this week were given an overview of the project, which is co-funded by the EU LIFE programme.
Dr James Power, an ecologist in the School of Environmental Studies at Coleraine, explained that the university's role is to provide a scientific basis for future beach management decisions by the local and national authorities.
"We're trying to strike a balance between the need to develop for recreational purposes and the requirement for proper conservation," he said.
Since June 1997 seven prime Co Donegal beach and dune systems have been the subject of intensive studies of the natural and social environments. There has also been consultation with local communities through public meetings, discussion documents, field trips, open days, information systems, even a Website.
Discussion documents will be presented at a final series of public meetings soon. "We're putting forward to the communities at these meetings a number of different options, and they'll be invited to say which they think are the best," said Dr Power.
Five-year management plans will then be completed for the seven sites with a suggested programme of implementation, for which EU funds will be available. Six of the sites contain Blue Flag beaches.
A range of problems and threats has been identified. At Downings, for example, permanent parks for caravans have mushroomed on the dunes since the 1970s, and shoreline "protection" work by site operators has led to erosion and damage. The degraded state of the beach and shoreline may even threaten the Blue Flag status.
Other issues at Downings include competition between incompatible activities, such as beach car-parking, swimming, jet-skis, water-skiing and windsurfing.
At Lisfannon, problems and developments threaten the very existence of the beach and dune system in the long term. This is the nearest beach to Derry city and has a potential catchment of over 100,000 people.
Improved access facilities to the beach, installed in the late 1980s, have led to rapid degrading. Immature dune vegetation has been damaged by trampling, unauthorised motorcycle use has broken up the dune cover and the rate of erosion is said to have been greatly accelerated by the armouring of the shoreline protecting a nearby golf course.
The scientists say further habitat destruction is threatened because of unauthorised construction work last year on a large marina, on which further legal action is likely.
At Narin, however, where Tramore Strand stretches for 2.3km along the southern shore of Gweebarra Bay, the situation is seen as more hopeful. "The community at Narin is very progressive and takes an interest in its beach," said Dr Power.
An active local community group has banned cars, quadbikes and jet skis from the beach; there are plans to upgrade the beach entrance with LIFE project input; and innovative "soft" approaches to coastal defences (using hay bales and mesh netting instead of "hard" engineering tachniques) have proved beneficial.
The neighbouring Portnoo golf course management is described as "environmentally sympathetic" and co-operative with the concept of sustainable beach and dune management. There are obvious downsides to the development of dune areas for golfing, but the Narin case may provide a pointer to the question of whether a golf course can coexist with good environmental practice.
The outcome of the project, it is hoped, will be the adoption of management plans that are sustainable and strike a balance between conservation and use of the beach and dune systems. The LIFE programme aims to produce a good practice guide on community-based coastal management for the entire European coastal zone.
Good-quality vegetated dunes that have not been modified or interfered with are already uncommon and are Annexe I protected habitats in Europe.
"We're just beginning to scratch the surface. We would love to extend the project to the whole Donegal coast," Dr Power said.
Ironically, for much of the past two years there has been no apparent need for beach management measures, because of the appalling weather conditions. "There has hardly been a soul on the beaches," he remarked.