Description

The Lough Neagh Partnership is a community-based NGO body made up of local businesses, landowners, community groups, elected representatives and other stakeholders with a responsibility to manage and protect Lough Neagh and its wider wetland area. The Partnership is based in Ballyronan but also has premises at Maghery on the southern shores of the Lough.

The Lough Neagh Ramsar, Lough Neagh and Lough Beg SPA, Lough Neagh ASSI and various SAC and ASSI`s (around the Lough) Citation reports highlight the main conservation interests on, or in, Lough Neagh and its surrounding shoreline. The 2019 Lough Neagh Shoreline Management Plan provides a strategic overview for the management of the Lough Neagh shoreline and identifies conservation priorities. Within this document, the Lough Neagh Islands Conservation Management Plan provides a series of recommendations for the management of those islands currently, or previously, used as breeding bird sites. The Partnership also manages a nature reserve on behalf of NIEA.

PEACEPLUS is a cross-border funding programme managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) and supported by the European Union, the Governments of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Government of Ireland, and the Northern Ireland Administration.

The PEACEPLUS Nature project is an ambitious €20.8 million programme which is being funded under the PEACEPLUS programme. It brings together nine partners to tackle the decline in priority species and habitats in Northern Ireland, and the border counties of Ireland.

This partnership is being led by RSPB NI. It includes Birdwatch Ireland, Butterfly Conservation, Monaghan County Council, River Blackwater Catchment Trust, Truagh Development Association, Lough Neagh Partnership and Northern Ireland Water.

The programme will be working to restore blanket bog, lowland wet grassland, limestone grassland and priority species including Curlew, Corncrake, Hen harrier, Small Blue butterfly, and Irish Damselfly. It seeks to restore and improve habitat supporting some of Ireland’s most iconic but threatened species.