A businessman who ploughed up part of an internationally protected nature reserve in Northern Ireland was fined £3,000 today.
Ken Cooke (63), told Bangor magistrates court in County Down: "I'll never do it again" after magistrate Mervyn Bates handed down the stiff fine as a warning to others.
The Department of the Environment took the case against the Newtonards businessman after a stretch of Strangford Lough foreshore was ploughed up killing off an area of eel grass which provides the staple diet for tens of thousands of Brent geese which migrate to the Lough every winter from the Arctic.
The court heard that over 80 per cent of the world's Brent geese population wintered in the Lough and that the eel grass was vital to them.
Prosecuting counsel Barry Valentine said that Mr Cooke was seen ploughing on the Lough shore on December 27th 2004 and was told that it was an area of special scientific interest and that what he was doing was an offence.
However he said Mr Cooke was then observed back at the same spot, Island Hill outside Newtonards on January 3rd 2005 ploughing again.
The magistrate said he was concerned Mr Cooke, having been told on December 27 that he should not plough, had failed to take on board what was said and had returned to carry on days later.
He said: "It is a frightening prospect that the Brent geese population should be upset and possibly affected irredeemably if this procedure were to continue."
He said he was satisfied the impact environmentally, if repeated, could be "very significant".
Handing down the fine he said: "I trust others will learn from this error, it seems to have become a practice which must be ended."