NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK Newsletter July 2020

NARROW WATER BRIDGE COMMUNITY NETWORK 
Newsletter July 2020 
 

The recent announcement by Infrastructure Minister Nicola Mallon regarding the Narrow Water Bridge is very much to be welcomed. Her recent interview with the Newry Reporter displays a level of commitment to the Narrow Water Bridge yet unseen in any previous minister with her portfolio.
So as we reflect on the very positive story emerging we ask; is this critical project finally to get the go-ahead because the system has now accepted that the persistently low level of investment in the area from the economic development agencies has clearly done nothing to reverse the deprivation levels in the council area? Could the penny have finally dropped that hotels and other tourist infrastructure lying derelict for decades reflects the precious little throughput from the some nine million tourists who come and go each year through Dublin Airport - just over an hour from Narrow Water? Is it perhaps that someone has noticed the growth in active tourism in the form of cycling and walking and the positive impact this is having on an ever increasing number of regions throughout Europe?The answer is a bit more fundamental - existential in fact.

Covid-19 has caused a radical rethink.  It has brought about the wonderful concentration of mind like that observed by Samuel Johnson when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight.
 
In the 1990's a concept developed by James P. Overton describes how political ideas can move from Unthinkable to Radical to Popular and ultimately to Public Policy. It is often referred to as the Overton Window. The recent initiatives announced by Minister Mallon to urgently integrate safe cycling city life in Belfast, Derry and Newry combined with the appointment in the Dáil of Eamon Ryan, leader of the Green party to the posts of Climate Change & Transport with his party colleague and deputy leader of the Greens, Catherine Martin to Culture, Arts, Media, Tourism & Sport are the clear indication that the Overton Window has fundamentally shifted!
 
The NWBCN firmly believe that Minister Mallon “gets it” and is genuinely determined that the bridge will deliver for the local community in providing vehicular access around the lough while preserving the critical "blue way" asset of the Newry Canal.

It is hard to image a more ancient and iconic site than Saul near Downpatrick believed to be the burial place of St Patrick. The NWBCN has long called for the extension of Ireland's Ancient East to include the eastern counties of Northern Ireland, a landscape as littered with remains of our ancient past both Christian and Pre-Christian as the counties further south. 

Despite the Good Friday Agreement back in 1998 including tourism as one of the six Areas of Agreement which ultimately led to the formation of Tourism Ireland as a Cross-Border body with offices in Dublin and Coleraine, Ireland's Ancient East still ends in Monaghan and Louth!
The Fáilte Ireland Research stats for 2018 show the Border and Mid-East & Midlands (discounting the South-East) as the worst performing regions in the State. NITB stats for the same period show NI residents making up nearly half (44%) of overnight visitors while only 16% were from outside GB & ROI. 

Of the eight areas designated as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty Newry Mourne & Down District Council has three within its boundaries. It is almost incredible to think this corresponds with one of the lowest levels of foreign tourist throughput in Ireland! 
Within our natural capital lies the wealth of future generations. With foreign investment from the development agencies for the constituency of South Down representing just 3% of the total investment in Northern Ireland for the years 2012 to 2017 it is clearly not going to come from without.

In a climate-altered world with natural capital and species diversity being lost at an incredible rate we owe it to the coming generations to get this right. And we have one chance to do it. "One of the penalties of an ecological education" said Aldo Leopold, founder of the modern ecology movement, "is that one lives alone in a world of wounds."

Degraded landscapes, inappropriate development, empty and derelict hotels, crumbling now for generations, not only act to discourage new generations of active and environmentally-conscious visitors but add to continuing abandonment of one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland by its young people.

The recent initiative known as the Dublin Mountains Makeover by Coillte, the Republic's forestry body, is literally ground-breaking! It will be the largest forest transformation project of its kind ever carried out in Ireland. A fifth of Coillte’s forests will now be managed primarily for biodiversity and recreation. Over the next few decades, it will see nine forests in the Dublin Mountains converted from commercial forestry to purely recreational areas.
 
 

 The approach to planting trees in these forests – 90 per cent of which currently have non-native coniferous trees – will change. Sections with suitable soils will be planted with native trees, and trees will no longer be clear-felled. Instead, continuous cover forestry techniques will be used.
To attract its share of the ever increasing number of green-oriented tourists in the Post-Covid world Newry Mourne & Down should seriously review its abundance of natural capital and be prepared to engage fully with the new and exciting developments in eco-and active tourism.

Adrian O'Hare Secretary NARROW WATER BRIDGE Community Network

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