Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the UK and Ireland, is the heart of a vast interconnected aquatic ecosystem, from its surrounding catchment area to the rivers which flow into it and flow out to the north coast.
In recent years, that heart has been under increasing pressure and, in 2023, an unprecedented blue-green algal bloom appeared, causing immense public interest and which was visible from space.
In this video, we meet Peter Harper of Lough Neagh Partnership; husband and wife regenerative farmers Michael and Judy Meharg; Ecologist and agricultural scientist Jim McAdam; and Shauna Corr, Investigative Journalist and Environmental Columnist.
On the shores of Lough Neagh are some of the deepest deposits of peat on the whole island of Ireland, storing massive amounts of carbon. According to Peter Harper, the whole site he is standing on is leaching carbon into the environment as it is being used for peat extraction.
He appeals for people to consider where their “compost is coming from, because in Northern Ireland, quite a lot of it is coming from this area and the impact of that is not good for wildlife biodiversity or for climate change.” He suggests people should consider “alternative sources” to peat compost.
Ecologist Jim McAdam produced the ‘Climate Change Impact and Carbon Storage Study for Lough Neagh’ report for Lough Neagh Partnership in 2023 and says that it is really important to maintain the peatland in a condition that it is holding the carbon in and not losing it to the atmosphere. If the peat “dries up, over grazed, tramped, or burnt, it gives off carbon dioxide”, explains Jim. “We want to try and keep as much carbon in the ground as possible. Farm our land and our soils so that we retain carbon in them as much as possible.”
The temperature of Lough Neagh is increasing more than the temperature of the land, fuelling algal growth along with the nutrients in the Lough.
Storminess is going to increase as the air warms up and has more energy, this will further disturb the water column and sediments in the lough.
There are are about 16.6 million tonnes of carbon in the Lough Neagh area – mostly in the peaty soils- with about 1 million tonnes in the Lough.
Jim says that a nature-based approach will improve conditions and positive steps like planting more trees will help prevent soil erosion with the tree roots helping store carbon.
Michael Meharg finds that over the summer months it’s a little drier on his farm in the Belfast Hills. He says that “wildfires are having an effect on farming” and Lough Neagh Partnership has worked with farmers to produce farm resilience plans for farmers.
Judy Meharg has planted 6.5km of hedgerows and a 2,000 tree woodland on her farm near Lough Neagh. Wildlife can travel along the length of the hedgerows safely and they “suck up all the water and clean up the nutrients and store carbon.”
“Scientists have been warning us for years that we would see increased storms as a result of our continuing burning of fossil fuels, but we’re all still driving around in our big cars, pumping out gas, and we’re burning oil in our homes”, says Shauna Corr.
Shauna adds “We haven’t even seen the worst of this [climate crisis]. If we think the storms this winter were bad, next winter they’re going to be worse. The winter after that, they’re going to be worse, and that’s the reality. The only way that we’re going to be able to reverse that and provide a good future for our kids and grandkids is to really get to grips with this now and hit the ground running with rolling out renewables – putting in wind turbines across Northern Ireland.”
The views and opinions on the subject of this video are that of the contributors.
