Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

238 Chapter 9: The Marine Environment Key chapter messages 1. Our wider marine environment is generally clean and healthy, but legislation to maintain this needs to be enforced more rigorously and new priorities addressed more quickly. For example, the delayed marine protected areas legislation is an essential part of the marine spatial planning approach that will ensure that marine developments do not occur at the expense of the wider marine environment. 2. Key pressures are still causing impacts on the biodiversity and productivity of marine ecosystems. Fishing at unsustainable levels is impacting both habitats and the food chain. Nearshore nutrient enrichment has the potential to affect coastal amenity. Measures to combat these issues need to be implemented and enforced, as current trends are indicating that environmental status is not moving in the right direction. 3. There have been many recent changes in marine policy. Policy coherence and coordination needs to be improved to avoid damaging our marine environment and to maximise the benefits of protecting it.