Sir, – A shocking example of a public body failing to protect a threatened biosphere is the neglect of the Bull Island biosphere by Dublin City Council (DCC).
Bull Island is the most designated site in Ireland. It is a Unesco biosphere (the only such biosphere within a capital city boundary). The island is also a national nature reserve, a special protection area under the EU birds directive and a special area of conservation under the EU habitats directive. Since 1995, Bull Island has been a special amenity area, one of only three in the Republic of Ireland, a designation based on the island’s outstanding beauty and nature conservation values.
Dublin City Council, which has responsibility for Bull Island, has failed to maintain the island in a way that meets the requirements of those designations. Bull Island was designated a Unesco biosphere in 1981. Unesco required that a report on the state of biodiversity be submitted every 10 years. DCC did not submit a report until 2014 when Unesco threatened to withdraw the biosphere designation. The report submitted significantly underestimated the loss of biodiversity, particularly the complete disappearance of hares, little terns, cuckoos and ringed plovers.
The main reason for the reduction in Bull Island’s biodiversity is uncontrolled access to the island by dog walkers, many of whom let their dogs off leads. This has led to the complete loss of hares and little terns and a huge reduction in the numbers of skylark, linnet, reed bunting and red poll.
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Another threat to the Island’s biodiversity is the extraction of water and the installation of wastewater treatment plants by the two golf clubs, Royal Dublin and St Anne’s, on the island, with the approval of Dublin City Council.
DCC, insofar as it has managed the island at all, has managed it as a park and leisure space rather than a significant and fragile nature reserve.
That DCC regards Bull Island merely as a park is clear from its North Bull Island Nature Reserve Action Plan 2020-2025 for the Implementation of Management Objectives (May 2020). This plan states that “the nature reserve will undoubtedly have a greater footfall as the urbanisation of Dublin continues” and argues, without any evidence, that the nature reserve has a “capacity to carry additional footfall”.
The only measure in the plan to deal with the uncontrolled dog walking, which is the greatest threat to the Bull Island biosphere, is a proposal that people, with or without dogs, will be “requested” not to access the northern end of the island and along the salt marshes and that dog walkers will be “required” to keep dogs on lead within the sand dunes. The southern end of the beach will be an “off-leash” area outside the bathing season. These pitifully weak measures are to be “supported by signage, communication and awareness raising”.
The effectiveness of “awareness raising” can be judged from the fact that when there was a warden on the Bull Island, he was abused and threatened when he asked dog walkers to keep their dogs on leads. No warden has been employed for the past four years.
The signs at the entrance to the beach from the causeway road saying that dogs should be kept on leads disappeared several years ago.
Not content with neglecting the conservation of Bull Island, which has led to a severe loss of biodiversity, DCC, with the support of Fáilte Ireland, now plans to build an intrusive “Discovery Centre” at the entrance to the beach on Bull Island at a cost of €10 million.
This centre aims to attract 55,000 to 60,000 visitors who will have to pay an entrance fee.
If the Discovery Centre is built and attracts the number of visitors needed to make it viable, it will hasten the decline of the nature reserve and will display pictures of birds and mammals which will have disappeared by the time the centre opens. – Yours, etc,
SEAN BYRNE,
Sutton,
Dublin 13.