Monday, April 15th, 2002
Marine & Natural Resources Minister, Frank Fahey TD, in a statement this afternoon marked the handing over the CLAMS (Co-ordinated Local Aquaculture Management System) plan for Killary Harbour to Galway County Council by saying “CLAMS can lessen misunderstanding and enhance mutuality. It can help generate a field of commonality and rekindle likewise the spirit of ‘meitheal’, a spirit which I believe continues today to strike a deep chord for Ireland as a country and for the people of the western seaboard in particular
He added “One of the great strengths of CLAMS, one which I have witnessed time and again in my period as Minister, is its ability to build a widely shared local consensus and common determination to work towards sustainable shared objectives for the aquatic resource locally”.
Minister Fahey also noted “that CLAMS has already made a distinct and positive difference to Killary Harbour itself and will continue to do so for the stakeholders using this magnificent resource, whether aquaculture, tourism, sport fishing, recreational or wildlife”.
The water body of Killary Harbour, and the vital need to conserve and maintain its quality and amenity value, constitutes the common denominator uniting the various stakeholders involved in Killary. On a practical level to date, the CLAMS process has been the catalyst for:
· a major search and clean-up of old aquaculture debris from the seabed within the Harbour area;
· for the decommissioning of a number of mussel rafts and salmon cages;
· for a programme aimed at replacing more visually intrusive blue barrels with a background grey; and,
· water quality monitoring programmes to determine the carrying capacity of the Harbour for future sustainable aquaculture development as well as patterns and configurations of algal blooms where these occur from time to time.
“While we are blessed as a country with a relatively pristine environment, it is imperative that we do not lose or waste this precious asset through any form of complacency” the Minister said. Adding that “clean waters can always be made cleaner, first-class can become world-class and systems can be continuously improved to effectively guarantee the absolute safety and quality of Irish aquaculture and seafood product.
CLAMS has a key role to play in the overall process of producing a top-class product in a sustainable and environmentally sensitive and appropriate way. Without environmental sustainability as a foundational underpinning, the entire process must inevitably founder.
“As we continue moving into the new millennium, it is inevitable that the Irish aquaculture industry and indeed the Irish seafood sector as a whole is going to come under increasingly intense pressure to deliver a consistently premium product to national and international markets” according to the Minister. “It is my belief that Irish aquaculture as a whole, whether finfish or shellfish, has now evolved to a point where it can begin to seriously establish and position itself as a producer of safe, nutritious niche products for the premium marketplace”, he added.
Minister Fahey concluded “I congratulate everyone involved in Killary in producing a plan designed to make Killary a showcase of all that is good and enlightened about aquaculture. I likewise congratulate the Agencies, both BIM and the Marine Institute, for the excellence of their continuing efforts to further enhance the specialist services required to put Irish aquaculture at the forefront. In particular, I want to pay tribute to the tremendous work undertaken by Thomas Burke as Liaison Officer and Dr Cilian Roden as Chairperson of the CLAMS Group in Killary”.
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Tony Bass
Media & Communications Manager
Department of the Marine and Natural Resources
Leeson Lane
Dublin 2
Tel: +353-(0)1-619-9471
Fax: +353-(0)1-676-6161
Or
Tom Mc Loughlin
Press Officer
Department of the Marine and Natural Resources
Leeson Lane
Dublin 2
Tel: +353-(0)1-619-9662
Fax: +353-(0)1-676-6161