EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 The report was edited by Brendan Wall, Annette Cahalane and Jonathan Derham. Review of integrated assessment aspects was carried out by Tadhg O’Mahony. Production of the report and Ireland’s Environment web pages was managed by Colette Ryan. Maps in this report were produced by Melanie Mageean and Tony Kent and provided by other sources as acknowledged through the report. EPA personnel who provided photographs were: Kevin Delaney, Jonathan Derham, Aimie Cranch, Hugh Feeley, Tara Higgins, Bryan Kennedy, Ruth Little, Stephen McCarthy, Nessa McDonnell, Paddy Morris, Sorcha Ní Longphuirt, Caoimhín Nolan, Ruth O’Connor, Cian O’Mahony, Tadhg O’Mahony, Mary Sheehan, Brendan Wall and Robert Wilkes. A Balance by Larry Stapleton Each year, that bit earlier, that bit later, the grass is green and growing, birch and beech are leafy, and Persephone in their shade watches martins and swallows hawking insects on the river. That her earth time grows longer, an old bargain being honoured less and less as the years go by, could not have gone unnoticed – Hades turning to his brother, and Poseidon ordaining a winter of storms, and with it a response more in kind – the tides to be set free, so that all the seas shall rise that bit higher and higher again each year. The late Larry Stapleton was a former Director of the Environmental Protection Agency and former editor of the state of the environment report series. His poetry has been published in Poetry Ireland Review , Irish Pages and The Irish Times . A Balance was published as The Irish Times Poem of the Week on 8 December 2018. Other photographs and images were provided by: #2minutebeachclean; An Taisce; BirdWatch Ireland; Brian Burke, National Parks and Wildlife Service; Kenan Chan; Colum Clarke, Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Department of Health; Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage; Dublin City Council, ELV Environmental Services, Emily Toner; ESBI; Glan Agua; John Fox, Inland Fisheries; Irish Water; Josh Rotbert, Met Éireann; Michael Keating; National Biodiversity Data Centre; Ordinance Survey Ireland; Florence Renou-Wilson; Aoife Cannon and Fiona Smith; Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland; Tina Claffey; Transport Infrastructure Ireland; University College Dublin; US Department of Transportation, Federal Aviation Administration; WEEE Ireland. Copy-editing and proofreading by Prepress Projects. Design by Clever Cat Design. 8