Lecale Beaches Get A £1000 boost from Lecale Conservation to plant grasses which prevent beach erosion
Downpatrick Councillor Cadogan Enright played host at the weekend to young environmentalists visiting from tropical Puerto Rico. Many of these visiting teenagers and young people have been involved in restoration of tropical Caribbean beaches with Mangrove plants.
Councillor Enright said: “I was delighted to host these delightful teens and show them the beach dune restoration projects I lead along the Lecale Coast on behalf of Lecale Conservation from Kilclief to Tyrella.
“The techniques we use were surprisingly similar with tropical beach projects using four different types of Mangrove plant instead of the Sand Couch, Lyme and Marram grasses we use in the temperate Irish Climate.”
Bryan Otero, one of the spoke persons for the ‘Caras Can Causa’ youth group said: “It was fascinating to see how in both the tropical Caribbean and temperate Ireland we use different species of plant with different levels of salinity in bands of planting protected from human footfall by fencing at the front edge.”
Environmentalists Victor Figueroa and Jean Torres agreed and Victor said: “In both jurisdictions the main problem is in the education of Local Government officials and Government Departments in avoidance of chemicals, and excess cutting.
“And it includes the need to run projects with planned and protected planting over several years to avoid temporary set-backs from storms, or in our case massive hurricanes.”
As part of the tour of beach projects, the group visited Kilclief-based charity ‘True Harvest Seeds’ who grow the tens of thousands of plants needed for local beach restoration projects with the help of volunteers from the Lecale area.
( https://trueharvestseeds.org/ )
Councillor Cadogan Enright presented a cheque of £1000 to True Harvest Chief Executive Debbie Gillis on behalf of Lecale Conservation alongside John Peacocke Chair of Lecale Conservation. https://lecaleconservation.org/
Lecale Conservation Chair John Peacoke said,:“We have been campaigning for our local Council to take a more active role in beaches conservation that it owns and controls locally.
“It is odd that our charity must do of the heavy-duty work in remediating local beaches. Damage to local beaches from storms needs prompt attention to keep them to the standards local people expect.
“Kilclief beach was inaccessible to many people earlier this year after storm damage.
“We will continue to campaign for the maintenance, and important of local beaches for public access and wildlife protection. I thank Cadogan for his leadership roles in these projects over the last 10 years.
