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The third of three episodes talking with seasoned environmental campaigner Dean Blackwood.

The second of three episodes with veteran environmental campaigner Dean Blackwood. We talk about Dean’s lifelong connections with the supposedly protected River Faughan, his decades-long career as a town planner and how, since leaving, he has used his experience and insider knowledge to challenge the irregularities and flawed practices in the NI civil and public service that were causing so much environmental damage to the river. Together with the Faughan Anglers, these concerns were brought before the European Commission and the UN under the Aarhus Convention, and out of this has come The Gathering, a loose collective of place protectors, who are all facing and challenging the systemic institutional failures and professional corruption across Northern Ireland in pursuit of environmental justice.

Links
Public Accounts Committee Report “Planning in Northern Ireland” 24 March 2022 http://www.niassembly.gov.uk/assembly-business/committees/2017-2022/public-accounts-committee/reports/planning-in-northern-ireland/

Northern Ireland Audit Office, “Planning in Northern Ireland”, 1 February 2022 https://www.niauditoffice.gov.uk/publications/planning-northern-ireland

Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, Aarhus, Denmark, 25 June 1998 https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=XXVII-13&chapter=27

On a rainy afternoon close to Christmas 2023, we walked along the banks of the River Faughan with veteran environmental campaigner Dean Blackwood and his dog Lola. In the first of three episodes recorded with Dean, here we talk about fish and fishing, the Rights of Nature and Dean’s knowledge and experience of this river and its tributaries, designated as both an Area of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Areas of Conservation and home to Atlantic Salmon, Otter and Old Sessile Oak Woods. We also talk about the pollution from the notorious illegal Mobuoy dump and the emotions stirred by Northern Ireland’s planning and reinforcement officials’ failure to protect this beautiful river.

Links
Buried (award-winning podcast by Smoke Trail Productions for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds) https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001hf1w

‘You should gaze at your bins in horror’: the massive crime scandal behind the UK’s rubbish’, by Daniel Dylan Wray, The Guardian 23 January 2023 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/23/buried-bbc-podcast-exposing-waste-rubbish-crime-scandal

River Faughan and Tributaries Areas of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI ) https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/protected-areas/river-faughan-and-tributaries-assi

River Faughan and Tributaries Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk/protected-areas/river-faughan-and-tributaries-sac

Our guest for this episode is Rosalind Skillen, journalist, climate justice activist, Marine Policy officer for BirdWatch Ireland, public speaker and an MSc graduate in Environmental Policy. We caught up with Rosalind in November 2023 when she came up to Belfast for the fifth annual ‘Bridging the Atlantic’ conference. We talk about the local effects of climate change in the damaging floods experienced in the country at the time, what drew Rosalind into climate justice activism, what it was like to be a COP26 & COP27 Delegate, how to bring others into the environmental movement and why the climate emergency doesn’t keep her awake at night.

Season 2 Episode 2: How to Save a Hedgerow

Quarterlands is a grassroots collective made up of friends and neighbours who live in and around the Quarterlands Road, Drumbeg. They have come together as a campaign group to question, resist and hold to account proposed plans from a private “developer”, who wants to build 17 luxury houses on a Site of Local Nature Conservation Importance (SLNCI) within the Lagan Valley Regional Park and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Discovering flaws and discrepancies in a planning application process that appears to show little regard for the site’s precious biodiversity, the Quarterlands Group is gathering evidence, enlisting expert support and keeping a forensic eye on the planning portal’s document trail.

In this episode, we talk to Roisin, local resident and a member of the Quarterlands group. We discuss the natural beauty and environmental significance of the site, its magnificent old hedge, the way the group formed and mobilised, their encounters with local councillors and administrators and what drives the group to continue working tirelessly and voluntarily to protect this place - one of several along the Lagan Valley - against commercial exploitation.
Thanks also to James Orr from Friends of the Earth for his contributions in the outdoor recording. Thanks to all Quarterlands members who so kindly welcomed us into their neighbourhood.

Resources:
Quarterlands’ excellent website https://quarterlands.com/ provides information, reasons for the group’s objections, an easily navigable document trail, and visual evidence of the beautiful flora and fauna found here that the group are working so hard to protect. Visit the website to see how to email your concerns to the planning authorities, write to Councillors and MLAs and object to planning proposal LA05/2022/0033/F.
You can sign the petition here https://www.change.org/p/don-t-bulldoze-our-biodiversity-save-lagan-valley-regional-park
Recent evidence of the biodiversity decline that gives context to Quarterlands’ objections is in the State of Nature Report 2023 that concludes: “In Northern Ireland, 12% of assessed species were at risk of extinction”. https://stateofnature.org.uk/
https://www.rspb.org.uk/whats-happening/news/state-of-nature-report

Episode 11: Cloghan Point II - Stopping the (Big) Boats?

This episode is currently not available due to legal action initiated by the developers of the proposed oil terminal at Cloghan Point.

In this episode (part two of two) we continue our conversation with Andy and Geraint, unlikely friends and accidental activists, who are among those opposing plans to expand an oil facility at Cloghan Point, Whitehead on the Antrim coast. The proposed development would turn this quiet and inactive site into a major import and distribution centre for petrol, diesel, and kerosene, undermining NI’s climate action and increasing traffic congestion, noise and risks to marine biodiversity in Belfast Lough. The proposal seeks to construct new tanks and infrastructure to facilitate supertankers from the Middle East and South America to import oil and use the site as a lorry distribution hub for the island of Ireland. This very major development has outraged the community of Whitehead, those concerned about the environment in Northern Ireland and climate activists. We visit the area, talk about its history, beauty, and potential for regeneration. Andy and Geraint explore the challenges of activism in a tight-knit, rural area and the problems that emerge when you campaign against such major developments.

For more information:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/389602178486609?locale=en_GB

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-50681007

https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/cloghan-point-oil-terminal-plans-16338438

https://twitter.com/CloghanNo

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/say-no-to-cloghan-point-oil-terminal?source=actionworks

You can view the planning application and register any objections here: https://planningregister.planningsystemni.gov.uk/application/280173