BORIS Johnson’s ambitious announcement to protect 30 per cent of United Kingdom land by 2030 will require a significant shift in approach by the Northern Ireland Executive if we want to restore the abundance and diversity of our local wildlife.
The prime minister promised to work with the devolved countries of the UK to meet this target, but in Northern Ireland existing designated sites for nature only comprise approximately 11 per cent of land. While we acknowledge that the 30 per cent commitment shows ambition towards addressing the nature and climate crises across the UK, it is evident that targets on paper are not enough. It’s time for new environmental laws in Northern Ireland, backed up by action and a cross-departmental, long term and well-funded approach to turn things around.
Mounting evidence for the need to make urgent progress was published recently by the Natural History Museum, in collaboration with the RSPB, revealing that Northern Ireland is languishing in 229th place out of 240 countries for the amount of nature it has left.
This alarming news follows our recent analysis of the NI Biodiversity Strategy that shows the executive is failing on more than 80 per cent of its targets to reverse biodiversity loss in Northern Ireland. Today, only 14 per cent of Northern Ireland’s designated sites and 4.5 per cent of protected sea areas are well managed – one in 10 species are in decline and water quality is getting worse. But even though these findings make for difficult reading, we believe that it’s not too late to turn the tide and make this decade count in the fight to save nature in Northern Ireland.
We have launched the Revive Our World campaign to call for the transformative changes that can bring nature back from the brink. Since strategies and statements are clearly failing, there must be targets written in law to secure nature’s recovery and tackle the climate emergency, along with financial investment to fund a green economic recovery from Covid-19.
The executive has an opportunity – and we believe a duty – to demonstrate that more will be done to secure a nature-rich, climate-safe future for the people of Northern Ireland. We are calling on the executive to act now for nature. By signing our petition at rspb.org.uk/ReviveOurWorld readers can show that they too expect the executive to turn commitments into action.
JOANNE SHERWOOD
RSPB NI
Unionism was first to use political violence in support of dictatorship
Unionists are up in arms over Gerry Kelly’s tweet about his and 37 comrades escape from the most escape proof prison in Europe.
Nationalists/republicans tolerated decades of discrimination and tried to bring about peaceful political change through the Civil Rights marches. Unionism said no, and were the first to use political violence and murder in support of their British manufactured, undemocratic, unionist dictatorship.
Unionists set the stage for
violent political change and the environment which forced Gerry Kelly and his comrades into armed resistance against a British government armed unionist dictatorship.
LIAM ARCHIBALD
Draperstown, Co Derry
Is Robert Sullivan the authentic voice of Cork?
Northern Ireland was only 20 years old when I was born in 1941. Now in my 80th year I am still surprised by how fresh my memories are of growing up in the 40s and 50s in Belfast. I was an avid listener then to all the political discussion that went on around my grandmother’s hearth. My republican uncle, my mother, my aunt and my Armagh grandparents were all witness to many of the events recalled in Eamon Phoenix’s excellent column ‘On this day.’ For them, those events were recent memories. Life for them was fraught under the heel of unionism. They suffered violent anti-Catholic hatred and discrimination. But the one thing that hurt most and burned deepest was the sense of betrayal and abandonment by the south.
I was too young to know who De Valera was but he was a dirty word in our house.
People like Robert Sullivan from Cork have long since gone beyond the point of Pilate-like hand washing regarding the north. Now they are strident in their pro-British views. No guilt here, no conscience, no shame. Is Robert Sullivan the authentic voice of Cork, the rebel county? As one of the abandoned Irish citizens in the north I feel a deep and abiding sadness with his attitude. Every time I read his letters I hear a cock crow.
W DONNELLY
Belfast BT11
Explanation needed
Sinn Féin councillors, and Communities Minister Carál Ní Chuilín, owe the people of west Belfast an explanation over the plans for the former Mackies site off Belfast’s Springfield Road. It is now clear that there are no guarantees of public housing in the plans for the development of the ‘Forth Meadow Community Greenway’ – as the old Mackies site is now officially known. The need for new and additional public housing is at crisis point in west Belfast. Currently the Housing Executive estimates that almost 2,500 new homes are needed. So, it is inconceivable that the former Mackies site, which is public land under the ownership of the Department for Communities, is not being earmarked for a major public housing project. The people of west Belfast, and in particular those families on the housing waiting list, deserve to be told whether or not new homes are to be built here. Why is Sinn Féin so reluctant to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on this issue?
JOANNE LOWRY
Workers’ Party, West Belfast
