Planning Minister Simon Coveney urged to reverse seaweed licence

Planning Minister Simon Coveney is being urged to reverse a decision to grant a licence to a biotechnology company to mechanically harvest 1,860 acres of native seaweed forest in Bantry Bay.

A 10-year trial licence to cut the large brown seaweed or kelp forest was issued by the Department of Planning to Tralee-based BioAtlantis in 2010 and is due to begin in the coming months.

According to Deirdre Fitzgerald of Bantry Bay — Protect our Native Kelp Forest, the project, which includes sections of the shorelines of the Beara and Sheep’s Head peninsulas in West Cork, is “on a scale not seen before in Irish or UK waters”.