New report focuses on emotional impact of Lough Neagh crisis

A NEW report focusing on the emotional and personal impact of the Lough Neagh blue-green algae crisis has been unveiled this evening by Queen’s University, Belfast.

Conducted by the Centre for Sustainability, Equality and Climate Actions, it focuses on interviews with 12 local people who have been affected by the ongoing environmental crisis in Lough Neagh, and details the emotional, mental and psychological impacts it has had on them.

Many of those interviewed reported a deep emotional and cultural attachment to Lough Neagh, based on long, multi-generational family ties to its shores, waters and natural life.

Cookstown academic, Dr Louise Taylor, who was involved in producing and publishing the report, highlighted the importance of offering a voice to those who had been directly affected.

She said, “There is a lot of noise being made regarding the current state of the water.

“But many of those who know and love the area simply don’t have the confidence that anything can be achieved at this point, so it’s about highlighting their experiences and giving them a voice.

“The Lough needs to breathe and the pollution needs to stop – that is the uncomfortable truth.

“The whole situation has been over complicated and it seems like everyone wants someone to blame, but they need to come together.

“It’s about collective responsibility and effective community action.”

Another of the authors of the report, John Barry, Professor of Green Political Economy at Queen’s, said, “Our hope is that this report will help to raise the voices, concerns and wishes of those who are too often voiceless and unrepresented in discourses on environmental crisis and action, and left powerless in decision-making.

“Our report concludes that there is a clear emotional dimension of people’s connection to and attachment to the Lough. Many interviewed spoke with affection, reverence and concern for the Lough and it was clear they cared deeply for it.

“As is understandable, this love, care and connection results in deep feelings of sadness, anger, disbelief, fear and anxiety as a result of the ongoing ecological crisis.

“One of the main findings of the report is the need for more research into the crisis, ecological, epidemiological and economic.

“It is also suggested that this research needs to be more collaborative, involving all members of the community and stakeholders, on the appropriate modes of governance and policy development needed for the restoration and ecologically sustainable management of the Lough.”

Ahead of the launch of the report, The Earl of Shaftesbury, Nicholas Ashley-Cooper, current ownership of the bed and soil of Lough Neagh, said he would like to transfer ownership of the Lough, but that it ‘may take time’.

He also explained that his Estate’s Lough Neagh Ltd Company had no control over the water in the lough, further stating that ‘collective action’ was needed to find solutions to the ongoing environmental issues.