#COASTAL NOTES - The Belfast Telegraph this week is running a special series investigating the environmental destruction of Northern Ireland's coastal and inland waters.
As the Telegraph's Linda Stewart writes: "Northern Ireland’s once rich seas are in danger of turning into dead zones devoid of marine life."
The 'Save Our Seas' series aims to "uncover the shocking evidence of how our treasured marine and aquatic environments have been decimated by years of neglect and failure to curb over-exploitation."
Already it's been reported that Stormont faces a whopping €9.6 million fine from the EU over its failure to protect horse mussel reefs in Strangford Lough.
But according to the Telegraph, that is just one of a number of "disturbing" happenings beneath the waves, with diver Barbara Irvine reporting shocking amounts of human waste littering the sea bed.
Meanwhile, anglers are quitting the shoreline as once plentiful supplies of fish have simply vanished.
“I no longer shore fish as there is no point, there’s nothing there," says Gary Gregg of the Irish Federation of Sea Anglers.
“We’ve been blessed with a very good mixed fishery due to the confluence of the oceans coming together with cold and warm water, but we've taken too much.”
The series continues in the Belfast Telegraph all this week.
