News - Ocean Focus

Ports and shipping identified as ‘important engines’ for economic growth

Addressing the European ShortSea Convention 2012 organised by the IMDO and Coastlink, Leo Varadkar, Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport noted that the event was “timely” given the challenges facing the EuroZone.

“The European Commission has identified ports and shipping as important engines for future economic growth. Their latest estimate identifies that over 800,000 enterprises, employing more than 3 million people directly, are located within European port community clusters.”

European ports are the transit point for up to 90% of Europe’s freight movements with the rest of the world, and 40% of the internal market.

Marine biomass to play major role in supplementing world energy requirements?…

Marine

Declan Hanniffy, Research Coordinator, OceanFuel Ltd

Today around 90% of the world’s energy consumption derives from the combustion of fossil fuels, i.e. coal, oil and natural gas are in limited supply and will one day run out. As a result, the quest for renewable energies – energies generated from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, tides, etc and from industrial or urban waste and biomass – started decades ago. Induced by numerous studies and energy conferences, the 27 Member States of the EU decided in 2007 that 20% of energy should come from renewable sources by 2020 (Lisbon Treaty).

There is a need to fulfil our energy consumption in a renewable and sustainable way, and aquatic biomass could be one source of this energy. Since the available area for cultivation at sea is so much larger than on land (70% of the earth’s surface is ocean) and growth rates of macroalgae (also commonly known as seaweed) are much higher than for conventional land crops, the potential for biomass production at sea is enormous.

Small is beautiful, but fluffy round the edges…

Fisheries

Brian O’Riordan, ICSF

Nearly everyone agrees that when it comes to fisheries small is beautiful. The world-renowned fisheries scientist Dr Daniel Pauly has even stated that "based on the cold facts... our society is, in many cases, better served by small scale fisheries.”

But what makes small beautiful is not just size, but what size implies. Small size is an indicator of sustainability, in as much as small in fishery terms implies using gears low of environmental impact; vessels with a relatively low carbon foot print with activities rooted in coastal communities and undertaken by small family based enterprises that provide jobs and income in areas with few economic or employment alternatives – and where women play a key role, if unseen and unrewarded economically.

As Lough Corrib degrades, who supervises the supervisors?

Environment/Freshwater Focus

Roderick O’Sullivan

Think Lough Corrib is a sea of tranquil beauty? Think again. Did you know that a sizeable percentage of Galway and Mayo’s agricultural wastes and slurries flow into it via its vast web of over-ground and subterranean waterways? Or that the lake receives sewage from distant Ballyhaunis, Tuam and from neighbouring Headford, Moycullen and Claregalway?

Sewage from Ballinrobe and Claremorris also transits Lough Mask into the lough. Many of the catchment’s sewage-treatment-plants are antiquated, spewing pathogenic organisms (Cryptosporidium, Salmonella, E. coli etc) into the lake while bacteria-rich sewage-sludge spread on neighbouring land similarly percolates into Corrib. This same lake supplies Galway and Tuam’s drinking water.

Shad magic in May

Environment/Freshwater Focus

Brendan Connolly

St Mullins is a beauty spot and ancient ecclesiastical site where the Barrow River forms the boundary between counties Carlow and Kilkenny. Here the river valley is steep sided and covered in mature woods. Despite being more than 50 km from the sea the tide reaches St. Mullins. It is this last section of tidal water that is the best known shad fishing stretch in Ireland.

Brian Lowth with a fine 1 kg Twaite Shad he caught at St Mullins. Photo Brendan Connolly

Twaite Shad (Alosa fallax) is a member of the herring and sprat family; however unlike its smaller cousins, it enters freshwater via a number of rivers along the south coast to spawn from the end of April and during May. This ‘anadromous’ migration (from sea to freshwater) makes St Mullins the hotspot in Ireland for shad fishing.

What lies ahead for the seafood development agency?

Seafood Business

The Public Service Reform Plan published on November 17 notes the IMDO and BIM to be: Candidate bodies for critical review by end June 2012.

Inshore Ireland asked Francis O’Donnell, CEO of the Irish Fish Producers Organisation (IFPO) if he thought BIM should remain a stand-alone agency or should be subsumed into its parent department, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine:

Francis O'Donnell, IFPO

In the current climate tax payers need to see value for money and the streamlining of services where possible and practical. Equally, as an organisation that works closely with BIM it would be easy to be critical that such a review is happening at all. Reviews are what governments do. We cannot have an ‘a la carte’ approach – it would be disingenuous to say the least.

Do new harbour charges threaten growth in marine leisure sector?

Cruising/Sailing

David Branigan

The statutory instrument enabling the Fishery Harbour Centres (Rates & Charges) Order 2012 has still to be signed into law by Simon Coveney, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries & Marine.

Dingle Harbour is one of the five Fishery Harbour Centres that will be impacted by the increases. Photo Gillian Mills/ Inshore Ireland

A wide range of charges were provided for under the Order, and the inclusion of fees for marine leisure activities attracted a strong response from the Irish Marine Federation which is concerned that development of the sector might be adversely affected.

EU fisheries ministers quash proposed privitisation of fish quotas

Fisheries

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney has welcomed the Danish Presidency proposal allowing each Member State to implement its own management arrangement for fish quotas.

EU fisheries ministers recently gathered in Luxembourg to reach a political agreement on the Commission’s proposal for a system of mandatory transferable fishing rights (concessions) which form a central piece in the proposed reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy.

International trade has major impact on ‘water frootprint’

Environment/Freshwater Focus

A study by the Water Footprint Network (WFN) analysing the quantity and distribution of global water use (1996-2005), calculates the water footprints of individual countries based on their production and consumption, and uses visually-striking graphics to display the pathways of the world’s largest virtual water movements.

First introduced in 2002 at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, the water footprint concept is a measure of ecological impact comparable to the better-known carbon footprint but focusing on freshwater.