The European Union (EU) has a bold and ambitious aspiration to restore European marine and freshwater ecosystems by 2030, by reducing human pressures on marine and freshwater environments, restoring degraded ecosystems and sustainably harnessing the essential goods and services they provide. A group of top EU experts have put forward an ambitious proposal for a “Mission Starfish”. This major flagship ‘mission’ for healthy ocean, seas, coastal and inland waters is to be funded by the EU under the forthcoming Horizon Europe Framework Programme (2021-2027) and will also need to be supported by other EU, national and regional funding programmes. To achieve its goal, the mission aims to raise awareness of the importance of healthy oceans, seas, coastal and inland waters among citizens and help develop solutions on a range of issues. Citizens are crucial to the design and accomplishment of the mission in helping to set objectives and targets and ensuring that missions like this one make a real difference in everybody’s lives. As part of the European Commission’s engagement with citizens across multiple EU countries on the mission, the Marine Institute developed a survey to consult Irish citizens and seek their views on what they believe are the top priorities for the health of the ocean and inland waters and how we can sustainably use and benefit from marine and aquatic resources. The survey was based around two areas of the proposed mission, namely: filling the knowledge and emotional gap, and; decarbonising our ocean, seas and waters. The survey was launched online on 13 August 2020 and was open for four weeks. This report presents the results of the survey summarising the opinions expressed by the 1013 respondents. The results provide an insight into people’s opinions and levels of awareness of our ocean, seas, coastal and inland waters and will inform the mission planning.

The Explorers Wild About Wildlife on the Seashore PowerPoint SORTING & CLASSIFYING SEASHORE ANIMALS Presentation can be used for science classes learning about living things as well as other cross curricular lesson plans. The Presentations can be used as PowerPoint or interactive presentations on a Whiteboard. The presentation includes lots of photographs of the seashore animals.

This Year in Review 2020 is a snapshot of some of the Marine Institute's many highlights and achievements during an eventful year.

The Explorers Wild About Wildlife on the Seashore Species Illustrations for Visual Arts include over twenty seashore animal illustrations that can be used for visual arts and other cross curricular lesson plans. The visual arts sheets maybe used for projects and visual art classes including colouring, painting or use of textiles to demonstrate the children’s discovery and understanding of the seashore. The sheets are divided into species and include Shellfish, Crustaceans, Fish, Jellies & Corals, Stars & Urchins and lots more, and provide a caption box for children to write fun facts and details of their work. Click 'View more files' below the thumbnail images for more worksheets.

Ireland’s marine territory extends far beyond our coastline up to 220 million acres (approx. 880,000km2), an area more than 10 times our land mass. The 'Real Map of Ireland' was developed using seabed information gathered as part of a major programme to map Ireland’s entire seabed territory. The programme began in 1999 as the Irish National Seabed Survey and continues today as INFOMAR*, a joint venture by the Geological Survey of Ireland and the Marine Institute. It’s one of the largest seabed mapping programmes in the world. The Real Map of Ireland shows Ireland's current designated Irish Continental Shelf, which is one of the largest seabed territories in Europe. The continental shelf is the extension of a State's territorial waters, where the natural land extends under the sea to the outer edge of the continental margin beyond 200 nautical miles from the coastline baseline. We have sovereign rights over the continental shelf to explore and develop its natural resources, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea Part VI.

The Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) and Marine Institute (MI) conducted seabed mapping between 2003 and 2005 under the auspices of the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS) and from 2006 to present day under the INtegrated mapping FOr the sustainable development of Irelands MArine Resource (INFOMAR) programme. INFOMAR is a joint venture between the GSI and the MI. The programme succeeded the INSS which was one of the largest marine mapping programmes ever undertaken, with a focus on deep water mapping. INFOMAR is funded by the Irish Government through the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC). INFOMAR Phase 1, 2006 to 2015 focused on mapping 26 priority bays and 3 priority areas around Ireland and creating a range of integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological features of the seabed in those areas.

The Geological Survey Ireland (GSI) and Marine Institute (MI) conducted seabed mapping between 2003 and 2005 under the auspices of the Irish National Seabed Survey (INSS) and from 2006 to present day under the INtegrated mapping FOr the sustainable development of Irelands MArine Resource (INFOMAR) programme. INFOMAR is a joint venture between the GSI and the MI. The programme succeeded the INSS which was one of the largest marine mapping programmes ever undertaken, with a focus on deep water mapping. INFOMAR is funded by the Irish Government through the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE). INFOMAR Phase 1, 2006 to 2015 focused on mapping 26 priority bays and 3 priority areas around Ireland and creating a range of integrated mapping products of the physical, chemical and biological features of the seabed in those areas. INFOMAR Phase 2, 2016 to 2026 intends to map the remainder of Ireland’s entire seabed. Figure 1 shows the extent of the mapped area under INSS and INFOMAR and the outstanding areas as of January 2019. Grey have already been mapped, blue and coloured hatched areas are unmapped.

In these changing times, with political and environmental uncertainty surrounding us, fisheries management needs to become more adaptive in order to respond to the changes in our natural environment and changing management frameworks. Based on close to real-time information updates, and harnessing modern technology, Real-Time Incentive (RTI) fisheries management is designed to evolve with the fish stocks, enabling managers to respond more quickly and efficiently to management issues as they arise. Through the use of a credit system that makes use of regularly updated fine-scale information, incentives can be incorporated as rewards to encourage desirable actions such as data collection or ‘fishing-for-litter’ activities. However, in order for a new system such as this to be useful and become accepted, stakeholders must be involved in the development and design process. This paper details the consultative process carried out with Irish demersal fishery stakeholders in an effort to identify their likes and dislikes of the system, and work towards tailoring the RTI system into a practical solution that works for them. In this process, we achieved a detailed understanding of the fishery, the complexity of the system, and the challenges faced by the stakeholders, all of which must be considered when attempting to implement a new management system such as RTI. A range of proposals were made by stakeholders, including new ideas for the future development of the RTI system. Most striking were the numerous ideas and approaches to tackling key issues currently facing the industry, many of which also have relevance to existing fisheries management. Given the freedom and support to do so, fishing industry stakeholders are eager to contribute to solving many of their own problems.

The primary aim of this project was to develop and implement a strategy which would integrate and enable data interrogation across all data sources used by the Marine Institute's Fisheries Ecosystem Advisory Services (FEAS) group.