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 the Manager of Lough Neagh Partnership, Gerry Darby, Andrew Corkhill of National Trust and Roy Taylor of NI Water.
Gerry speaks about his ambition to witness the creation of a Forever Lough Neagh type initiative, similar to that of Forever Mournes.
Positive conversations are already taking place and Gerry is hopeful that the initiative could be developed as a way of managing the Lough in the future and believes that taking learnings from the successes of Forever Mournes will be crucial in the development of Forever Lough Neagh.
National Trust’s Andrew Corkhill explains that after one of the largest wildfires ever to impact the Mournes landscape in 2021, a group of charities got together to consider working closely to care of the open and vast landscape.
They worked on aligning the project and considered strategies for the future, consulted far and wide to ensure everyone was involved and informed about the project.
Forever Mournes are working on projects and plans that are really making a difference aimed at improving water quality and practically in the Mournes landscape.
Roy Taylor of NI Water says that the Mournes is a strategically important water source as it supplies 40% of drinking water into the greater Belfast area. He has been involved with Forever Mournes for two years and says that water quality everywhere needs to be improved.
Roy says that with everyone working together and bringing learnings from other areas to Lough Neagh will help farmers and communities to improve their water quality.
He says that Lough Neagh will require its own bespoke solutions to deal with its own particular problems.
The views and opinions on the subject of this video are that of the contributors.
