Coastwatch ( Irish Coastal Environment Group - Coastwatch)

Last Friday we held our final event in Galway, part of a series of three with the Horizon More4Nature project, on the topic of Our Coastal Water Quality. Fiona Holland and Paula Kearney in Galway City Council helped with the hosting of the event which started with a field trip to Salthill led by coastal ecologists and geomorphologists and joined by volunteer coastwatchers, sea swimmers, and local and national authorities. At the Hardiman Hotel Session 1 delved into some of the problems with access to environmental information and barriers to public participation encountered with regard to the Coastal Zone presented by our Coastwatchers from around the island. The second panel was made up of representatives from key authorities and agencies who outlined their roles, authority and responsibilities. They included Ciar O'Toole, Senior Marine Advisor, MARA, Mike Brunicardi, Lieutenant Commander, Irish Navy, Paula Kearney, Biodiversity Officer, Galway City Council, Robert Wilkes, EPA, Laura Brophy PhD, Team Leader Env Data, Marine Institute and Triona McGrath, An Forum Uisce. The more4nature project aims to bring about transformative change in environmental protection by including informed citizens and communities as key actors in collaborative environmental compliance assurance. The final session was made up of five breakout sessions where citizens and authorities discussed how to strengthen collaboration to prevent pollution and develop alert system for speedy action. We were delighted the new Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and the Marine Timmy Dooley was able to join us to hear about our deliberations. He gave an informed presentation, recognising the work and aims we have in relation to water quality and the marine environment, and reiterated his commitment to work to deliver the policies and legislation that are needed to halt pollution and strengthen protection.    

We are really looking forward to this event in Galway tomorrow with a fantastic line up of presenters, experts, authorities, coastwatchers, local groups and interested citizens as well as being joined by Minister Timmy Dooley hosted with more4nature & Galway City Council University of Galway Antoin McDermott Lorna Siggins #waterquality #citizenscience https://lnkd.in/eX_JayZT

Happy #worldwaterday One action you can take book your ticket to our event next Friday. This session will feature aquaculture, climate change & coastal erosion, pollution at sea, Section 4 licenses and pull together recommendations from the previous 2 sessions that focused on Nitrates, waste water, oil and chemical pollution. Delighted that Minister Timmy Dooley has confirmed attendance and appreciate the co-hosting with Galway City Council Antoin McDermott Karen Ciesielski Lorna Siggins Irish Maritime Development Office Noirin Burke Ruairí Ó Conchúir Deirdre Lane Bunzl UK and Ireland Jack O'Donovan Trá Bernie Connolly TG4 University of Galway Please book here https://lnkd.in/e8QZG9Xj

🐝📉 In Portugal, the decline of #pollinators poses a serious threat to the health of nature and crops. Together, we can turn this around. Thanks to our more4natue partners at Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, we are strengthening alliances between public institutions, researchers and citizens to collectively conserve and restore pollinator populations. 🎯 Check out what we’re achieving! In the context of the PolinizAÇÃO initiative, the more4nature team is working with Portuguese national and regional institutions, governmental agencies, research centres, citizen scientists and NGOs in the co-production of Action Plan for the Conservation and Sustainability of Pollinators in #Portugal. We have organized two insightful workshops and laid the foundation to strengthen existing activities and launch new ones that foster collaborative environmental compliance through monitoring and enforcement. We also visited the municipality of #Oeiras to explore challenges and opportunities for pollinator conservation on the ground. Representatives from the city council, local citizen science initiatives and inhabitants of the municipality took part in two working sessions. Together, we identified and developed a shared vision with concrete collaborative actions about some pressing issues affecting pollinators in Oeiras such as:  🚧 Non-sustainable construction practices  🌷 Existing green areas covered only with grass 🙋 Difficulties to keep citizens informed and engaged with solutions. Overall, these workshops highlighted that knowledge sharing, mutual understanding, and collective learning create new opportunities and bring us closer to reversing the decline of pollinators in Portugal. We are committed to continuing this collaborative journey. Thanks to all the participants who joined these workshops and special mention to TERRA Associate Laboratory and the Municipality of Oeiras for their support in hosting these events. Are you involved in similar initiatives? We’d love to build a community — share your experiences in the comments! 📢  Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF) Centre for Functional Ecology - Science for People & the Planet Programa Ciência mais Cidadã Rede Portuguesa de Ciência Cidadã Uta Wehn Gitte Kragh Joan Maso Pau Karin Dubsky, Sasha Woods, Ida Theilade

We are delighted to announce our session on Friday 28th March in Galway examining citizen and authority collaboration to halt water pollution with more rapid response systems. This is the final in a series of three and will bring together themes already covered as well as more focus on aquaculture, coastal erosion and pollution at sea. We have a great range of workshops on offer in the afternoon. This event is supported by Galway City Council & more4nature. Booking essential at https://lnkd.in/e8QZG9Xj University of Galway Lorna Siggins Paula Kearney Georgia MacMillan Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) Emma Armshaw Jack O'Donovan Trá Antoin McDermott Karen Ciesielski Donna Weiner Line Barkved

Delighted to share our video of our #waterquality event hosted with more4nature at Trinity College Dublin. The event was a great success bringing our Coastwatchers, state agency representatives, academics & scientists, NGOs and interested members of the public together to present, discuss and look for solutions for better alert systems with #citizenscience to ensure harm to water is halted & to continue the positive change our results showed this year with nitrate levels reduces for the 1st time Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) Teagasc Uisce Éireann Irish Water Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland Gretta McCarron Line Barkved Uta Wehn Antoin McDermott Karen Ciesielski

Really fruitful #waterquality event, hosted at Trinity College Dublin in conjunction with more4nature. We heard experiences from our Coastwatchers - Dr. Sara Zimmerman, Balbriggan, Kealan Arenzana King, Louth, Dara Mac Domhnaill, Skerries and Eugene Quinn, Boyne Estuary in reporting issues and how they were dealt with across a range of issues. It was really great to have representatives from six state agencies to provide insights into their varying roles and the current systems used to deal with complaints and communications from the public in relation to water quality. They included Cormac Craven, Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA), Edward Burgess, Teagasc, Noel McGloin, Inland Fisheries Ireland, David Rafter, LAWPRO, Ronan Kane Uisce Éireann Irish Water and Ted Massey, Department of Agriculture chaired by Matt Crowe, National Water Forum. Micheál Lehane, Director Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland Chaired the next session in which Dr. Trish Murphy provided a detailed overview of the impact of the Inishowen Rivers Trust in supporting greater cooperation and collaboration, Ruben Ormillien, compared the implementation of the Nitrates Directive in Ireland and France and the oversight regarding slurry spreading in France, Bernie Connolly highlighted the opportunities technology provides using Fix My Street as an example of a more interactive and transparent model that addresses public concerns. A workshop followed that explored in small groups how improvements could be made that would help achieve our shared objective of improved water quality. It was very heartening to get so many committed stakeholders together to focus on improved collaboration to achieve greater environmental compliance that involves #citizenscience Antoin McDermott Dave Ludgate Gitte Kragh The Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA) European Environment Agency Gretta McCarron Earthwatch Europe Line Barkved Karin Dubsky Uta Wehn Christian Volkmann (he/him)

We wish to confirm that our Water Quality Event is going ahead tomorrow. We hope that none of you have been too severely effected by Storm Eowyn and that most of you who intended to attend can still do so. This water workshop is part of a Horizon EU funded project – More4Nature with citizen participation. The updated programme is available here - https://lnkd.in/ef8zjm7A... More details and booking on our website - https://lnkd.in/eKM2fhNY... https://lnkd.in/eFmp8pFm Teagasc Uisce Éireann Irish Water Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Ireland Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA) Noirin Burke Gretta McCarron Antoin McDermott Oonagh Duggan Karen Ciesielski Fintan Kelly The Environmental Forum

#CitizenScience and community-led actions are key to enforcing the year-delayed EU Deforestation Law. 🌲❗ The European Council and Parliament have agreed to postpone the application of the #EUDR by one year responding to growing pressure from business groups and competent authorities. While the decision has been subject to criticism, it is also an opportunity for mobilizing the necessary resources and expertise for the proper enforcement of this pivotal regulation to combat deforestation and forest degradation. Ida Theilade, more4nature’s deforestation team lead and professor at the Københavns Universitet - University of Copenhagen, urges competent authorities, commodities operators, and traders in Europe to include citizen generated data in their exercise of due diligence. For instance, this could be used to document large-scale, severe, and irreversible deforestation or to assess third country risks, as already foreseen by the EUDR. We also hope that this postponement of the implementation date will not reduce the demands of such a critical legislation that regulates the commercialization of products like palm oil, cattle, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber and rubber. #EnvironmentalCompliance #SustainableForestry #WoodIndustry #CircularEconomy #Supplychain #Compliance #DueDiligence #EUGreenDeal #GreenBusiness #Deforestation #ClimateAction Uta Wehn, Joan Maso Pau, Gitte Kragh, Karin Dubsky, Sasha Woods, María Relea García, Gabriela Dutrénit

We invite you to join us for the 1st of our Water Quality Results events where the findings on Water Quality and nitrates from our surveyors who participated in our Autumn Survey 2024 will be presented. This will be followed by information from Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Uisce Éireann Irish Water local authorities and others on current alert systems. The workshop will look at how citizens and authorities can work together to improve the alert and action systems. The focus for this event is on sewerage, agriculture nutrient pollution and microbes. A 2nd workshop on 25th February will tackle oil and chemical pollution. As some of you are aware this event was deferred. The timing is changed with registration at 10.30am, the session will run from 11am - 3.30pm. Anyone who has already booked and intends to attend does not need to do anything. Anyone wishing to book please visit our website - https://lnkd.in/e7BsBUDW for further details and to book or scan the code on the image. The programme is also available online or here - https://lnkd.in/ei7UVgsq more4nature Earthwatch Europe Antoin McDermott Gretta McCarron Christian Volkmann (he/him) Hans Zomer Fintan Kelly Dave Ludgate Ellen Murphy Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority (SFPA)