National Marine Habitats Monitoring Programme

Description

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) is responsible for the conservation of natural habitats and species and the protection of biological diversity in Ireland. It is also responsible for providing advice to Consenting and Licensing Authorities in that regard. Under Article 11 of the Habitats Directive, surveillance of the conservation status of Annex I habitats is required and under Article 17, each member state is obliged to report this status to the European Commission every six years . Site-specific data has been used to develop conservation objectives for the habitats listed in Annex I of the Habitats Directive for which a site is selected. Each conservation objective has a number of targets to be met in order for a habitat to be in favourable conservation condition .The data collected during the baseline and monitoring surveys was used to inform the 2013 & 2019 National Conservation Status Assessment reporting for the seven marine Annex I habitats (Habitat 1180 is excluded from this monitoring programme). Assessment forms and Audit Trails for each habitat can be accessed as part of NPWS http://www.npws.ie/publications/search?title=article+17 and all relevant data and metadata used to derive distribution maps is available at http://www.npws.ie/maps-and-data/habitat-and-species-data. The 2019 Article 17 report noted that there were significant pressures and threats to marine habitats in the inshore. This project is designed to collect data to inform the next Article 17 report in 2025. Eighteen sampling sites have been selected for monitoring between 2022 and 2025 representing a geographical spread and a range of Annex I habitats. See RfT document for full specification