Five years after the fracking company Tamboran lost its licence to drill and frack in the countryside of County Fermanagh, the company has submitted another Petroleum Licence Application.

The 2014 campaign to keep Fermanagh frack free was long and arduous - but it's critical that we regroup and challenge once again. If a licence is granted this year, Tamboran could be fracking Fermanagh until 2049, with nothing under the licensing laws to stop it.

This is where we need your help! Please take five minutes to read five reasons why we must keep Fermanagh Frack free - then sign our petition!

1.Climate change

We know that we are in a climate emergency, with devastating effects on people’s lives, on nature and on the future of the earth as a home. There are many changes that urgently need to be made, but one of the biggest is that we have to end our support for the fossil fuel industry. 

Shale gas is not a clean ‘transition fuel’ but one which produces enormous greenhouse gas emissions. It is part of the problem, not part of the sustainable solution.

2. Health and wellbeing

Fracking has serious impacts on human health and community wellbeing. These include physical and mental damage caused by air, water, noise and light pollution as well as huge increases in heavy traffic and virtually inevitable accidents.

3. Jobs and the economy

Shale gas extraction is not a high-employment industry. Experienced workers will be brought in from elsewhere to carry out the high-skilled jobs, and will take their salaries back with them. Drilling and fracking are not investments in our county but extractions from it.

4. Wildlife, livestock and landscapes

Many of the negative health impacts on human health will first be seen in our animals, both wild and farmed, in our birds and especially our fish. Fracking is not safe for nature anywhere, but Fermanagh’s complex geology and hydrology make it especially dangerous here.

5. Outdated laws, Brexit and Stormont

This is not the right time for civil servants to be proposing the issue of new licences. We need a full assessment of mining and drilling plans and policies, with opportunities for people and community groups to take part in that process. We also need to know whether our health, our rights and our environment will be properly protected if and when we leave the European Union. And we need transparency in decision-making, and named ministers who can be called to account by Assembly questions and committees.