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Turning the tide to save the Irish Sea

•Six nations have come together to find solutions to the challenges nature is facing across the Irish Sea
•Collaboration across national borders is essential to achieve a well-managed and ecologically coherent network of Marine Protected Areas and truly sustainable fisheries across Irish Sea
•Strategic regional planning with ecosystems at the heart of decision making requires all Irish Sea nations to work together

Conservationists from around the Irish Sea are looking to turn a tide of inaction to ensure the Irish Sea and all its inhabitants are protected.

While 36 per cent of the Irish Sea is designated as a Marine Protected Area, only approximately five per cent has any management in place and less than 0.01 per cent is fully protected.

The Irish Sea is under significant and increasing pressure from climate change and activities like fishing, aquaculture, development, shipping, aggregates, military activity, recreational activity and pollution.

And while more than 15 million people live around the Irish Sea and many more visit for holidays, only a small percentage of them realise what wildlife lives there and just how important it is for biodiversity and the environment.

Conservationists representing six countries and a number of different organisations – Manx Wildlife Trust, North Wales Wildlife Trust, the North West Wildlife Trusts, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Sustainable Water Network (Ireland), The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and Ulster Wildlife – have come together to press for action.

The Irish Sea region is already considered to be in a degraded state. The Irish Sea Network has produced a Review of the Irish Sea 2022 and has laid down their vision and calls to action to protect and improve the health of the Irish Sea.

Head of Marine at the North West Wildlife Trusts, Georgia de Jong Cleyndert says:

“Working together is essential. Wildlife does not adhere to lines drawn on maps, so we need to think at an Irish Sea scale. Whilst there are some protection measures in place for the Irish Sea, management is weak.

“Millions of people around the Irish Sea rely on it for food, employment and wellbeing, but many overlook its role in fighting against climate change and its importance for wildlife – few know about the incredibly diverse habitats that support a huge amount of amazing wildlife – giant basking sharks, leatherback turtles, beautiful starfish and jellyfish, dolphins, porpoises, seal and sharks, as well as internationally important seabirds like Manx shearwater and guillemots”.

Without protection and proper management much of this wildlife faces an uncertain future - pollution, development and destruction of habitat could lead to a severe decline in biodiversity.

The Irish Sea will also be affected by global warming. Blue carbon is the absorption and storage of atmospheric carbon in the marine environment. Oceans store 20-35 per cent of human-made carbon emissions. Blue carbon is stored in the Irish Sea in seagrass, saltmarsh, sediment, shellfish beds and reefs, intertidal sand and mud flats and brittlestar beds. Whilst intact marine ecosystems are effective at sequestering and storing carbon, when marine habitats are damaged they can’t retain as much carbon and may switch from being a carbon store to a carbon source.

A basking shark (Ceterhinus maximus) feeding at the surface on plankton.

Alexander Mustard/2020VISION

Georgia de Jong Cleyndert continues: “We must ensure that damaging activities like dredging, development and damaging fishing practices are managed to ensure that vitally important areas for the environment are protected and we give space for nature’s recovery.

“If people living around the Irish Sea and those visiting realised just what amazing wildlife is in there and how important it is for the future of our children and grandchildren, they would want to support the work to protect and improve our forgotten sea.

“We are also calling on politicians and business leaders to work with us to make sure this is a sea where wildlife can flourish.”

The Irish Sea Network has a vision for “a healthy and resilient Irish Sea, enabled by collaborative, cross-national action; where marine wildlife and blue carbon habitats thrive, supporting multiple environmental, social and economic benefits”.

It believes that strategic and effective marine planning that takes an ecosystem-based approach with cross-national collaboration, would help to reduce the impact upon sensitive wildlife habitats and carbon stores.

Steve Trotter, CEO of Cumbria Wildlife Trust said “The Irish Sea Network is a vital partnership that brings together representatives from all six nations around the Irish Sea. The Network’s vision and position statements reflect an urgent need to protect and strategically manage this incredibly important, yet busy, regional sea. Our marine environment plays a huge role in climate change mitigation but can only do so if it is healthy and if actions are taken to reduce and reverse biodiversity loss and protect ecologically important areas”.

Tom Burditt CEO of Lancashire Wildlife Trust said “We often describe the Irish Sea as the Forgotten Sea, because it gets less attention than other parts of the British and Irish coastline, and because despite millions of people living and holidaying along its shores, very few of us get to see and experience either the wealth of life living in it, or the damage being done to that special wildlife by inappropriate and unregulated activities. This new partnership, vision, and review is an important next step at addressing that. But it will only work if we now use it to work in partnership with the communities and businesses living and working on, in and alongside this fabulous marine ecosystem.”

Charlotte Harris, CEO of Cheshire Wildlife Trust said: “The marine environment is not the first thing to spring to mind when people think about Cheshire however along with Lancashire Wildlife Trust, Cumbria Wildlife Trust and North Wales Wildlife Trust we do important work in the Liverpool Bay area. Cheshire Wildlife Trust is committed to protecting the marine environment as part of Living Seas North West and as the lead partner in the Tidal Dee Catchment Partnership. 

“We all know what strength can come from partnerships and people working together and that is what this new strategy should enable us to do on a much bigger scale. 

Cheshire Wildlife Trust has a vested interest in the lives and livelihoods of its coastal communities, both human and animal, with conservation work within the Irish Sea benefiting all of us into the future by reducing the effects of climate change and improving habitats for wildlife and people alike.” 

Barrel jellyfish

Mark Thomas

Leigh Morris, CEO of the Manx Wildlife Trust said “The Isle of Man is surrounded by the Irish Sea, which makes up the majority of our territorial area as a Crown Dependency (you could say a map of the Irish Sea is really a map of the Isle of Man and the water that surrounds us!). Therefore, for Manx Wildlife Trust (MWT), the Irish Sea is of significant importance to us, and we know that working with other nations is absolutely fundamental if we are to achieve our long-term Irish Sea conservation goals. The Irish Sea Network (ISN) was created just after I had joined MWT and I am delighted with the progress to date, and even more importantly, the potential opportunities ahead. It has already been useful to understand the different perspectives and priorities from the other Nations around the Irish Sea and our ISN document is far stronger because all six nations are in agreement. I am very much looking forward to the next steps, MWT are keen to play our part, and it will be crucial to see how we, as a ISN group, align, collaborate, and deliver for the sustainable future of the Irish Sea going forwards.”

Jo Pike CEO, of the Scottish Wildlife Trust, said: “The Scottish Wildlife Trust welcomes this new partnership as the time for action to transform our marine environment is now, if we are to address the nature and climate crises together. Our marine environment has been neglected for too long and by working together we can make the improvements we need in the Irish Sea to deliver the right level of protection for our key marine areas, reduce the damage from human activities and undertake more sustainable fishing practices. There is much more we can do to help the wide array of wildlife that lives in our seas and at the same time unlock multiple benefits for people.”

Jennifer Fulton, of Ulster Wildlife Trust said: “The Irish Sea is an ecologically diverse but heavily used sea, of strategic importance to all surrounding nations. Supporting wildlife and the many essential ecosystem services of a healthy shelf sea against a backdrop of climate change and biodiversity loss requires an urgent transformation in management, encompassing a truly transboundary, collaborative approach

Starfish

Cathy Lewis

Sinéad O’Brien, Coordinator of Sustainable Water Network (SWAN), said: “It is clear that pressures in the Irish Sea are increasing. Although 36% of the Irish Sea is designated as protected, Ireland contributes only about 1.4% to that figure and due to a lack of management plans for these protected sites the level of actual protection is much lower again. The Irish Sea is about to get much busier. For example, we know that we are about to see a huge expansion of offshore renewable energy projects, but if we want to tackle the twin climate and biodiversity emergencies, we need robust marine planning which ensures space for nature through a network of effective marine protected areas covering a minimum of 30% of our waters. The time for action is now.”

Frances Cattnach, CEO of North Wales Wildlife Trust, said: “Whilst there is still much to discover about the wildlife of the Irish Sea we know that it is suffering massive declines and we must act quickly and decisively to protect what’s left. As Wildlife Trusts surrounding this incredible area of sea we have worked together for many years but this new Irish Sea Network and Vision gives us the opportunity to work at a truly collaborative and strategic level towards our vision of a healthy and resilient Irish Sea.”

Rachel Sharp, CEO of Wildlife Trusts Wales, said: “Wales has more sea than land and the only effective way of managing this natural resource is to work in partnership. Therefore, Wildlife Trusts Wales welcomes the Irish Sea Partnership at this critical time in understanding the multiple pressures affecting our marine environment. Together we can take the urgent action needed to restore the Irish sea for people and for nature.”

Harbour porpoise

Niki Clear

Read the Irish Sea Network’s Vision Statement and 2022 Review

Learn more

Editor’s notes

Wildlife of the Irish Sea

There are basking shark and humpback whale wandering through the “gap” between the Isle of Man and North Wales. There is some evidence that basking sharks spend all year round in Irish Sea feeding and breeding. Courtship behaviour has been seen off the Isle of Man. There are the schools of bottlenose dolphins playing off Liverpool Bay, this is a sea that is remarkably rich in wildlife.

Important, often rare, habitats include honeycomb worm reef, coastal saltmarsh, intertidal mudflats, seagrass beds, fragile sponge and anthoozoan communities on subtidal rocky habitats, mud in deep water, sea pen and burrowing megafauna communities, blue mussel, horse mussel and maerl beds.

The honeycomb worm is a reef-building worm. It builds itself a protective tube from sand and shell fragments, forming a reef that looks like honeycomb. Each little hole is like a worm apartment. The honeycomb worm is a filter feeder, extending feeding tentacles into the water column when the tide is in to catch floating particles of plankton or detritus. The honeycombs are homes for up to 38 other species. Not common in Irish Sea.

The smelt is a marine fish but enters freshwater in the spring to spawn. They shoal in large numbers and are a major food source for fish-eating birds and other fish. Whitebaiters call smelt “cucumber fish” because they smell like cucumber.

Ocean quahog is a bivalve mollusc that lives buried in sandy seabeds all around the UK. Often its feeding siphon is all that is visible above the seabed and the end is sometimes nibbled off by hungry cod. They are very slow growing and extremely long-lived - with individual clams living for hundreds of years. It is the last surviving species of a family of similar clams that dates back to the Jurassic. The shell can be used to show its age and what the marine environment was like in the past.

Harbour porpoise can be easily spotted close to shore in shallow water, either alone or in small groups. If you get close enough you may hear their loud “chuff” noise as they come to the surface for air, this gives them their nickname “puffing pig.”

The largest species of skate in the world, the common skate is also one of Britain's largest fish species. They live on sandy or muddy seabeds, down to depths of 600m. Whilst mostly feeding on crustaceans with their powerful jaws, common skate have the speed and manoeuvrability to catch pelagic species such as mackerel too. Genetic research has found that the common skate is actually two species: the blue skate and the flapper skate. Critically endangered.

Common oysters, also known as Native oysters, live on the seabed in shallow coastal waters and estuaries and will form dense beds where conditions are favourable. One shell is rounded and the other is flat, like a lid. Oysters start life as males, but can change sex regularly throughout their lives depending on the temperature of the water.

Seabass is a seafood favourite, appearing on menus throughout the UK. But it's in trouble in UK seas, with much of the seabass we eat imported from European fish farms. The European seabass is a predatory fish found around the UK. They are highly mobile, migrating inshore in summer months when they are found in estuaries and surprisingly far upstream in rivers. In the winter months they move offshore and then in spring will gather in large shoals to spawn.

The Manx shearwater sea bird is known for its haunting call and was once mistaken for witches by pirates off the coast of Wales. They travel thousands of miles every year to nest in their hobbit-like burrows to raise one super fluffy chick. Shearwater chicks become so big that they are not able to leave the nest – and instead, must go on a crash diet in preparation for their big journey to South America for winter.

The Irish Sea Network is an innovative, partnership comprising of conservation organisations surrounding the sea that have come together to improve our collective impact for nature. Established in September 2020, through funding provided by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the John Ellerman Foundation, the Network’s membership includes representatives from: Manx Wildlife Trust, North Wales Wildlife Trust, the North West Wildlife Trusts, Scottish Wildlife Trust, Sustainable Water Network (Ireland), The Wildlife Trust of South and West Wales and Ulster Wildlife. Responding to the urgent need for greater cross-national collaboration and knowledge sharing, its aim is to improve understanding of marine conservation activities and pressures across the Irish Sea, and to provide a forum for communication, co-operation and greater advocacy for better management of the Irish Sea.

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