Silence on the causes of ecological and climate breakdown is not acceptable. Those responsible need to explain. Please ask questions beginning with those who claim to care most: the Northern Ireland Environment Agency and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).
The Whooper Swan is one of the anchor features of the Lough Neagh & Lough Beg Special Protection Area (SPA). As one of Northern Ireland Priority Species the Northern Ireland government claims: "most major sites for this species are designated as Areas of Special Scientific Interest and Special Protection Areas".
An enquiry under Environmental Information Regulations revealed that only 10.4% of this site's Whooper Swan's feeding grounds are designated.
The A6 Randalstown-Castledawson dualling scheme is being constructed through the Toome Complex, adjoining the existing SPA. A government report, based on a five-year Site Fidelity study, established the Toome Complex as Ireland's single-most important site for wintering Whooper Swans. Completed in 2010 it showed the Toome Complex met all criteria for SPA designation in its own right and recommended its immediate protection.
Nothing happened, the report was locked away. A mere 4km of road will result in the loss of over 50ha of irreplaceable feeding grounds. In addition, new roundabouts and bridges open up Lough Beg and the rest of the Toome Complex to the adverse effects of habitat degradation, fragmentation and pollution.
This off-line route is destroying an internationally important wetland. There have always been alternatives. How are Northern Ireland's Environment Agency and RSPB fulfilling their role as guardians of nature? Please challenge their silence and inaction and put an end to ecocide.
Suggested questions to the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, an agency within DAERA: Minister Poots, Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs; private.office@daera-ni.gov.uk
Q1: Why has your department not acted on the findings of government's 2010 Site Fidelity report?
Q2: Why is your department not treating the loss of over 50ha of swan grazing habitat as a wildlife crime and insisting on the restoration of the Toome Complex and associated active peatland?
Suggested questions to RSPB, who advise the Department for Infrastructure's Whooper Swan Working Group: Chief Executive Beccy Speight; beccy.speight@rspb.org.uk
Q1: In view of the unfolding ecocide at Lough Beg and its Toome Complex of swan fields, how do you think RSPB's 'strategic buy-in' [RSPB at Public Inquiry] justifies your claim to be the UK's voice of nature?
Q2: Government has promised RSPB a publicly funded 'tasteful swan viewing facility'. Is your logic, as a conservation charity, that if it is good for RSPB it follows that it is good for Lough Beg and its birds?
Thank you. Please share any replies with xrni.media@rebellion.earth