Marine ecologists have questioned the value of a newly proposed Irish marine protected area (MPA), and environmental groups have warned that there needs to be effective engagement with the fishing industry for the zone to be successful.
While welcoming the proposed MPA – covering more than 305,000 hectares of marine waters off Wexford on Ireland’s east coast – in principle, Irish NGO coalition Fair Seas has called for management plans and a long-promised MPA bill in parliament that would detail how protections on the water would be enforced.
Dublin-based Fair Seas went on to offer a caveat: Proper consultation with local fishers, communities, and other stakeholders is vital to ensure the success of any MPA.
Fair Seas Campaign Coordinator Donal Griffin casted some skepticism on whether that consultation was guaranteed, pointing toward the fact that Ireland scored lowest among 10 E.U. countries ranked by the E.U. Commission on planning, implementation, site management, monitoring, and conservation outcomes as it relates to protected areas.
“We need proper management, monitoring, and enforcement for these areas to truly protect nature,” he said.
Oceana Campaign Director for Marine Protection Nicolas Fournier echoed that skepticism, stating that the country’s “ambitions are not up to the job, especially considering the triple crisis we face: biodiversity, climate, and pollution.”
“Until 2023, Ireland was at the bottom of the ranking of E.U. countries for marine protected areas, and only thanks to new MPAs last year, it went from 2 percent to about 8 percent of its waters designated as MPAs,” Fournier said. “So, not only did Ireland fail to meet the previous international U.N. target of 10 percent by 2020, but it will require immense and resolute efforts to meet the new 30 percent target by 2030 as endorsed by the government.”
Other E.U. nations that are well ahead of the Irish in marine protection, noted Fournier, include the Netherlands, which has 20 percent of its waters designated as MPAs; Lithuania and Spain with similar figures; and Belgium, France, and Germany all designating some 30 percent of their seas as MPAs.
“Some E.U. countries like Italy, Croatia, or Malta are in the same position as Ireland, as they fall short of their MPA targets and have been dragging their feet in designating new protected areas,” Fournier said.
Besides poor governmental planning, Jonny Hughes, a marine biologist at Blue Foundation, said pressure from the industrial fishing industry across Europe is one of the biggest barriers to the establishment of effective MPAs. The fishery lobby, he told SeafoodSource, asserts “pressure on individual member state ministries that prevent any real progress being made at all.”
He argues there is a “huge democratic deficit” between what the public thinks MPAs mean and "how they are then watered down and reframed to become virtually meaningless.”
The new Irish MPA is centered around appearances rather than substance, giving the public a false impression that all sea life is being protected, Hughes said.
“This MPA would provide exactly no benefit to anything that lives on the seafloor, to anything caught in a bottom trawl, and, at the moment, to any birds,” Hughes said. “Drawing ever larger squares on maps that then go ahead and prohibit next to nothing isn’t protection.”
Speaking for the Irish fishing sector, the Irish Fish Producers Organization (IFPO) said in a statement to SeafoodSource that it supported an “effectively” implemented MPA but wanted more consultation regarding exact logistics.
“This sector is already facing a spatial squeeze from new marine users in the form of developer-led wind farms, which are to be located on prime traditional fishing grounds,” the IFPO said. “In Ireland, we are expecting legislation in 2024, and it is critical that the member state adopts a sensible and meaningful design and location of the MPAs. The history of consultation with the seafood sector is haphazard, and the industry is not sitting back.”
