{"id":483011,"date":"2026-06-04T16:57:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/483011\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T16:57:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T16:57:10","slug":"ireland-will-protect-its-seas-taoiseach-tells-cork-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/483011\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland will protect its seas, Taoiseach tells Cork conference\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">Ireland is committed to protecting its marine environment,\u00a0<a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.echolive.ie\/corknews\/arid-41856444.html\">Taoiseach<\/a> Miche\u00e1l Martin said at the opening of the Fair Seas World Ocean Week conference in Cork\u2019s City Hall on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cAs an island nation, our connection to the sea shapes our communities and our identity,\u201d Mr Martin said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cIn our coastal towns and villages, it has sustained families for generations. As an island nation, the sea is not the edge of Ireland, it is the beginning of the rest of the world.\u201d\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">He said his Government continues to work to deliver a legally robust framework for marine protected areas alongside broader marine planning measures.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe Fair Seas conference provides an important opportunity to bring together international expertise, scientific leadership, and community voices to help drive meaningful progress on ocean conservation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Sustainable future\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Speaking to  The Echo, Mr Martin said the conference was about how best to utilise the sea and how to create a sustainable future for the maritime domain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cFundamentally, we\u2019re under threat, the seas are under threat, but there is a pathway, and the marine-protected area concept is particularly important. We have agreed that 30% of our seas would be marine-protected.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cIt will mean a lot of negotiation with the stakeholders, with everybody involved, but it\u2019s in everybody\u2019s interest, it\u2019s in society\u2019s interest, in terms of regenerating our seas, conserving species, because the seas are the foundation of life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Fair Seas is a coalition of leading environmental non-governmental organisations and networks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The campaign group\u2019s membership includes Irish Wildlife Trust, BirdWatch Ireland, Sustainable Water Network, Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, Streamscapes, the Irish Environmental Network, and Coastwatch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Protect and manage our ocean<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The event at City Hall is the second Fair Seas conference and brings together international experts, ocean advocates, fishing and coastal communities, government, industry, and key stakeholders to discuss how we protect and manage our ocean in to the future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The keynote speaker, Minna Epps, who is global ocean policy director at the International Union for Conservation of Nature, called for co-ordinated action to protect the oceans amid accelerating climate and biodiversity challenges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cPollution, biodiversity loss, overfishing, and climate impacts cross borders through ocean currents, ecosystems and economies alike,\u201d Ms Epps said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\n            \u201cThat is why ocean protection cannot be approached in isolation or through fragmented action.\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">\u201cThe real test for protecting the global ocean is no longer ambition, it is delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland is committed to protecting its marine environment,\u00a0Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said at the opening of the Fair Seas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-483011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-cork-news","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}