Part of the Cork Harbour Forum and its Advisory Group working towards integrated management of Cork Harbour

Sustainable and integrated management of the magnificent resource that is Cork Harbour has always been a passion of mine.  I was hugely enthusiastic to take part in the Cork Harbour Forum, an EU-funded initiative led by UCC’s Coastal and Marine Resource Centre which involved all stakeholders in the Harbour when it first met in 1006.  It subsequently met a second time, thereafter producing the Cork Harbour Integrated Management Strategy.  I was at the launch of the Strategy in the Sirius Arts Centre in Cobh and can testify to the hope and enthusiasm the prospect of integrated management brought to so many.

Although the Forum did not meet again, the Strategy plans were being advanced behind the scenes by a collaborative group of statutory bodies involved in the Harbour.  I was concerned that this Harbour Management Focus Group was viewed locally as being removed from the on-the-ground stakeholders.  So I joined the Focus Group as a representative of Passage West/Monkstown Town Council.  My role was to chair the Working Group on Heritage.  It was the work of the Focus Group which resulted in the hugely successful Cork Harbour Open Day which has run each year for the past three years.