'Spectacular". An "underwater wonder world" which is "teeming with life". Scientists aren't always comfortable about waxing lyrical, but this is how a group of French, Dutch and Irish researchers reacted after their recent voyage off Ireland's Atlantic coast.
The Caracole expedition had set out to study coral on the Porcupine Bank, Porcupine Seabight and Rockall Bank, using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) on board the flagship of the French research fleet, the 84 m L'Atalante. The £20 million ROV, named Victor, is owned by the French marine research institute, Ifremer. Its 10 dives in depths of up to 1,000 m in early August revealed a profusion of activity, comparable to tropical coral, challenging notions that the deep sea is a dark, dank, lifeless place.
The coral ecosystems are a significant habitat for juvenile fish and had been identified off the west coast during a £25 million national seabed survey, which has finished its first year. Multi-beam sonar equipment used by the Geological Survey of Ireland confirmed coral presence on carbonate mounds, which are in turn linked to potential mineral reserves.
However, the Franco-Irish trip was the first detailed study of the habitat, and one which produced extraordinarily rich images of Lophelia pertusa communities.
The habitat appears to be in very good shape, according to the man who put the project together, Dr Anthony Ryan of NUI Galway's Martin Ryan Institute. The relatively pristine state of the environment was heartening, he emphasised, as it would allow key Irish agencies to develop management strategies. At the same time, his colleague on the trip, Dr Andy Wheeler, of University College Cork, was able to point to an image of a plastic cup at 300 m.
That cup was a sober reminder of the extent to which the Irish marine environment is being polluted, and at an increasingly rapid rate. Normally it takes a maritime disaster, such as the grounding of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989, to focus minds on its fragile state. However, ocean-based sources of pollution represent only 23 per cent of the total, according to the Independent World Commission on the Oceans*. Most damage (44 per cent) is caused by run-off and land-based discharges, with indirect land-based pollution through the atmosphere accounting for another 33 per cent.
The capacity of the oceans to accommodate increasing demands has been steadily eroded, and conflicts among competing uses have become commonplace.
The commission said: "The oceans can no longer be considered to be existing in isolation from the land. Of the many thousands of chemicals that are used for different purposes, most end up in the oceans and, overall, around 77 per cent of marine pollution is estimated to have its origins on land, indicating that it is increasingly necessary to think in terms of systems that include both the oceans and river basins."
Ireland has a responsibility to take this holistic approach to the environment, but has not fulfilled it, according to such environmentalists as Karin Dubsky, international co-ordinator of Coastwatch Europe, and the Green MEP, Patricia McKenna.
In the case of nuclear discharges from Sellafield, the Government has someone else to blame. However, when the Sellafield issue came to the fore at the OSPAR conference in 1998, the Green Party criticised the Government for a weak submission which focused on discharges of radioactive technetium 99, a by-product of spent nuclear fuel known to accumulate in shellfish.
There is a belief that Ireland could strengthen its case in relation to Sellafield if it showed better management of its own maritime area. Unfortunately, an insular, almost hostile attitude to the environment beyond the shoreline has so pervaded Irish bureaucracy that local authorities will even try to pass off responsibility for pollution incidents on to other bodies like harbour companies (as happened earlier this year in Galway when two incidents on the river Corrib coated the famous Claddagh swans with oil).
The Irish Coast Guard is taking its international responsibilities on pollution control seriously, but most pollution incidents can be traced to inland sources, showing the need for a stronger preventive dimension.
Ms Dubsky has played a key role in raising public awareness over the past decade and more. She admits to being more pessimistic now than she was 10 years ago.
"Eight years ago, when we were setting up a coastal zone management group, I was incredibly optimistic. I could see the damage being done, but there was the potential to arrest it. The coastal zone management initiative that we took appeared to be about to achieve something in 1994.
"Then the Government pulled back, employed consultants to do what we had done already, and apart from publication of a draft policy, the impetus appears to have been lost.
"We are at a low point now, as we are losing habitats, including valuable wetlands, and designation under EU directives doesn't seem to matter.
"But I do see a new opportunity approaching with the EU Water Framework Directive, which will require preparation of river catchment and coastal zone management plans. Also, the Port Waste Management Directive requires all harbours to have waste management plans in place by December 2002.
"If all these sectoral and area plans can be taken in under a coastal zone management umbrella, we could be moving on."
The Water Policy Framework Directive is part of the European Commission's drive to ensure member-states live up to their responsibilities. In the case of existing legislation, this State is already in trouble. In July the Commission confirmed it was taking Ireland to court over failure to reduce pollution in a number of areas vulnerable to nitrates, increasingly a threat along coasts.
Ireland is the only member-state to have failed to designate any nitrate-vulnerable areas under the EU Nitrates Directive. The directive aims to prevent excessive levels of nitrates from agricultural fertilisers and other waste entering surface and ground waters.
Excessive nitrate levels are a factor in the proliferation of harmful algal blooms, and also pose a risk to public health. Several nitrate-vulnerable zones are expected to be announced shortly, and farming in these areas may be restricted.
The Commission is pursuing several other breaches. In August it said it was sending a formal request to Ireland to prepare anti-pollution programmes for waters designated for shellfish under the Shellfish Water Directive. If there is no satisfactory response within two months, it is likely to take Ireland to the European court.
The Commission found Irish legislation provides only for such programmes where problems have already arisen, and does not take account of the need for prevention. It says the value of adopting a preventive approach is illustrated by the collapse of the scallop fishery in Mulroy Bay, Co Donegal, in the 1990s when the chemical tributytlin was used to protect fish-farm cages. Also, illegal waste at Greenore port in Co Louth has resulted in detection of PCB pollutants near a designated shellfishery.
The Environmental Protection Agency has also been criticised by the Commission.
The EU is largely financing urban waste-water treatments which will reduce the level of sewage discharge at sea, and sewage sludge dumping has been outlawed thanks to its intervention. It has recently reached agreement on the need for tertiary treatment of sewage in Dublin, but has also been examining other plans including Cork and Limerick. It says no scientific evidence tertiary treatment is required in Limerick, but "there is a question-mark over Cork".
Even in the case of the deep-sea coral, the Commission is already monitoring developments. Its environment directorate is aware Ireland may now have responsibility for the most important coral reef system in Europe. Greenpeace had to take Britain to court to ensure its 200-mile zone was protected, and the Government may now find itself in the same position.
*The Ocean . . . Our Future, the report of the Independent World Commission on the Oceans, chaired by Mario Soares, Cambridge University Press, 1998