Beach Awards & Clean Coasts. Annabel FitzGerald Coastal Programmes Manager EEU An Taisce EPA National Water Event 11 th June 2014

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2 Beach Awards & Clean Coasts Annabel FitzGerald Coastal Programmes Manager EEU An Taisce EPA National Water Event 11 th June 2014

3 Presentation Overview Beach Awards The Blue Flag The Green Coast Award Clean Coasts & Citizen Engagement Marine Litter surveys & removal 2minutebeachclean Beat the Microbead

4 2014 Programme Funders & Sponsors

5 The Blue Flag

6 Blue Flag the concept of the Blue Flag, France Criteria - bathing water quality & sewage treatment 1987, European Year of the Environment - FEEE 244 beaches & 208 marinas in 10 countries 1988 Ireland join 19 beaches & 2 marinas 2001 FEEE becomes FEE South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, New Zealand, Brazil, Canada and the Caribbean International set of criteria 2009 Brazil agreement to implement standards of the rbwd 2012 FEE General Assembly 25 th Anniversary 2014, 4000 Blue Flags in 48 countries

7 The Blue Flag in Ireland 89.6% say it s important when picking a beach Marinas Beaches

8 How is a Blue Flag awarded? 32 criteria Water quality Information provision Environmental management Environmental Education Safety & Services Online application National Jury DOECLG, IWS, NPWS, EPA, UCD, TCD, Fáilte Ireland, ICRT, An Taisce International Jury UNEP, EEA, UNWTO, ILS, IUCN, EUCC, ICOMIA, FEE Control Visits

9 Country BF Beaches Identified BW % BF Km of Coast Coastline Parradox Spain % 7,268 Greece % 15,147 France % 7,330 Portugal % 2,830 Italy % 9,226 Denmark % 5,316 Croatia % 5,664 Ireland % 6,437 Netherlan ds % 1,914 Cyprus % 671 England % Germany % Wales % Poland % <1%

10 Blue Flag Water Quality Criteria Parameter Coastal & transitional Escherichia Coli Faecal Colibacteria Prior to 2012 Intestinal Enterococci (Streptococci) Inland waters 1 waters previous limit season All limit WQ values submitted values directly 250 cfu/ to An 500 cfu/ Taisce 100ml 100ml Notified of exceedance 100.cfu/ 100ml 200 cfu/ 100ml Temp removal of flag if higher limit Sign posted informing beach user why 3 parameters Parameter Limit Value Accepted Post 2012 % results higher than limit values The rules of the rbwd implemented Total Colibacteria 95 th percentile 500cfu/100 20% ml 5% BW Profile & BW 10000cfu/1 Calendar 00ml Continue 100/100ml to 20% encourage 2000/100ml greater 5% numbers of sampling 100/100ml 10% Get WQ results using the EPA EDEN database Faecal Colibacteria Faecal Enterococci

11 Information Provision - The Old Way BW Lifeguard times Quality & info about the BF Code of conduct Beach map Enviro ed. activities

12 And now

13 1. Plan the sign 2. Active/passive target groups 3. Language 4. Barriers to understanding legal/technical terms 5. Who is this aimed at? 6. Specialist groups?

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15 Blue Flag Engaging Citizens Social Media Control visit updates beach by beach on Twitter LA on FB Active engagement Beach User Beach Inspections #BlueFlagSelfie Youtube channel to be launched soon Blue Flag Beach Inspections What a Blue Flag Beach Inspection looks like

16 Kieran Phelan, Love Your Coast Competition 2011 Clean Coasts

17 Clean Coasts Wexford CoCo KWT An Taisce KWT EU Interreg funding 2008 DOECLG provide funding for nationwide rollout Keep Northern Ireland Beautiful join Coca-Cola & Fáilte Ireland 2014 Ireland, Wales and NI Need to attract more funding to sustain levels of growth

18 How is the Green Coast awarded? High environmental quality Excellent WQ Public participation May not have all the infrastructure required for BF Can be awarded to nonidentified BWs 54 GCAs 16 identified BWs 38 beaches are nonidentified but being sampled according to the BWD Same application procedure as BF

19 Clean Coasts Engaging Citizens Opportunity to develop into a catchment wide programme

20 Marine Litter 1. Clean Coasts Week 120 coastal clean ups European MLW app Lets Clean Up Europe Day 2. The Big Beach Clean 3 rd weekend September World s largest marine litter survey

21 #2minutebeachclean

22 @CleanCoasts #2minutebeachclean Next time & every time Snap Tag Share

23 Beat the Microbead

24 What are Microbeads? Personal care products contain thousands tiny plastic particles microbeads Polyethylene (PE) Washed down the drain Microplastics <5 mm Microbeads <1 mm.

25 Beat the Microbead 2 Dutch NGOs North Sea Foundation Plastic Soup Foundation Clean Coasts joined the campaign 1. Raising awareness Twitter campaign Writing to stakeholders Beat the Microbead Roadshow 2. Building the Irish database 3. Inviting citizens to engage Download the app Help to build the database

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28 Annabel FitzGerald

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