Richard Boyd Barrett: Protect Marine Areas
Richard Boyd Barrett addresses biodiversity and marine protected areas, criticising failures to shield sensitive marine environments and warning that offshore wind development is being sited on ecologically vulnerable sandbanks. He points to the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the UN biodiversity framework which call for 30% marine protection, while current protection remains under 10%.
Richard Boyd Barrett argues the government has failed to adequately protect marine habitats and that private offshore wind developers are selecting ecologically sensitive sites off the East Coast for profit. He urges that the most sensitive marine areas must be designated and protected before developers choose locations.
The speech highlights sandbanks as critical spawning grounds for shellfish and fish, supporting local fishers and around 800 jobs. Barrett references concerns raised by groups such as the Southeast Coastal Protection Alliance and specific damage reported off Arklow bank.
Barrett notes wind farms require decommissioning after 20 years and may be rebuilt on a larger scale, potentially increasing harm to marine biodiversity. He warns that damaging these carbon-capturing environments can ultimately undermine climate objectives.
He calls for legislation to establish marine protected areas and reach the 30% protection target mandated by EU and UN frameworks, so that offshore renewable energy development does not come at the expense of biodiversity.
Key allegation and demand
Richard Boyd Barrett argues the government has failed to adequately protect marine habitats and that private offshore wind developers are selecting ecologically sensitive sites off the East Coast for profit. He urges that the most sensitive marine areas must be designated and protected before developers choose locations.
Local impacts and livelihoods
The speech highlights sandbanks as critical spawning grounds for shellfish and fish, supporting local fishers and around 800 jobs. Barrett references concerns raised by groups such as the Southeast Coastal Protection Alliance and specific damage reported off Arklow bank.
Decommissioning, climate and carbon capture
Barrett notes wind farms require decommissioning after 20 years and may be rebuilt on a larger scale, potentially increasing harm to marine biodiversity. He warns that damaging these carbon-capturing environments can ultimately undermine climate objectives.
Policy consequences
He calls for legislation to establish marine protected areas and reach the 30% protection target mandated by EU and UN frameworks, so that offshore renewable energy development does not come at the expense of biodiversity.
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Transcript
Okay so I welcome the opportunity to discuss the issue of biodiversity and there there's a lot of aspects to it but one that is directly relevant to my own area is the issue of marine protected areas and I've raised this point many times is that first of all the government have failed to adequately protect sensitive marine environments and so the EU biodiversity strategy 2030 and the UN biodiversity framework requires that we have 30% protection of our marine area should be protected and currently we're at less than 10% and in the meantime another imperative which is the development of offshore renewable wind which is absolutely a priority but the need to synchronize these two things in a way that doing one doesn't actually undermine the other has not happened and in fact what's happened is that the private developers of offshore renewable wind have got to select sites and they have chosen sites that are most likely from a biodiversity point of view the most ecologically sensitive sites because they're cheaper and more profitable for the developers to develop offshore renewable wind so and what I'm talking about is off the East Coast the development at very close proximity to the shore on sandbanks which are ecologically very very sensitive they're the spawning grounds for shellfish and many species of fish they also provide livelihoods for fishers off the East Coast and probably involved directly and indirectly about the fishers estimate about 800 jobs but the fact that the developers have decided that these sites should be selected rather than us deciding which are the marine areas that need to be protected is a problem and there certainly I mean if you take groups like the Southeast Coastal Protection Alliance they would say there's been very significant damage from even the wind farm off the Arklow bank to the marine environment there and to biodiversity marine biodiversity off Arklow and now there has to be decommissioning after 20 years another important factor they have to decommission these things after 20 years and then build them again on a bigger scale where there's already significant evidence of damage to marine biodiversity which ultimately it's important to say can actually undermine the climate imperative for which renewable energy is being developed in the first place namely to prevent damage to the wider climate because of course these environments are particularly important for carbon capture but they are being potentially seriously damaged so the point is we should have the legislation on marine protected areas and we should have the 30% necessary and we should ensure that the most ecologically sensitive marine areas are protected before we let developers decide where they want for profit reasons to develop offshore renewable energy which we absolutely need and I know that in most of the rest of Europe they don't put offshore wind at anything like the proximity that is being proposed on the East Coast they put it 20 to 30 and up to 60 kilometers off not the sort of 10 kilometers on these sensitive areas that is being proposed here so I think we need to understand biodiversity is critically important in our and the protection of sensitive marine protected areas and it shouldn't be the sort of poor relation when we're talking about protecting our environment you