Ireland - UK watershed: Brussels investigates Northern Ireland's failure to protect Lough Beg SPA

Irish Wildlife magazine highlights this month the all-Ireland aspect of Lough Beg’s ecosystem. A National Library of Ireland exhibition opens this month in Dublin, celebrating the life and work of Seamus Heaney whose first published work 'Death of a Naturalist' was inspired by this watery landscape. Since March a deep ecological wound has been carved into Lough Beg’s protected wetlands. As yet, the damage is not irreversible. Seamus Heaney loved Lough Beg and wrote in support: “It’s hard to say ‘you shouldn’t touch those places because I wrote about them’, but the fact is that those undisturbed acres are as much a common spiritual resource as they are an ecological treasure. All over the world it is being realised that the outback, as we might call it, of the ‘developed’ areas is the last vital ditch in need of protection; and this work of protection has to be done vigorously….” We have hope - the European Commission has opened an investigation. Please add your voice to this campaign by writing to: Paul Speight, Head of Environment Unit at the European Commission: ENV-CHAP@ec.europa.eu quoting reference no. CHAP(2018)00464 to express your concern at the multiple failings to protect the all-Ireland and internationally important wetlands of Lough Neagh & Lough Beg SPA and Ramsar site. For more information please visit this petition's home page. Thank you.