Half our rivers, lakes and estuaries are unhealthy, with pollution escalating

The Government has published a proposed water management plan (the River Basin Management Plan) but it’s weak and won’t work. We have submitted 7 recommendations to fix the plan (see below) and many of you have also submitted our recommendations too (thank you!). The Government is currently reviewing the submissions so we need to ensure we grab their attention now and call for our asks to be adopted.

To do this we are asking people to take part in our photo campaign (details below).

Will you be part of the change and act now for your water environment?

Read more about SWAN’s 7 Asks, why we need action and who is SWAN below.

How do I take action?

Photo Post Campaign

We want you to let Minister Darragh O’Brien, who has top responsibility for water and Minister Malcolm Noonan (responsibility for Heritage which also includes nature and water) know that SWAN’s 7 asks need to be in the River Basin Management Plan.

To do this we are going to get their attention with an eye-catching social media campaign full of your photo posts that:

Celebrate our rivers, lakes and coasts.
Highlight the pressures they are under.
Call on them to adopt SWAN’s asks to Restore Our Waters.

We’re running the campaign till the end of June. Read how the campaign works below.

Steps to Follow:

Take a photo of your water environment and upload it.

The photo should illustrate the beauty of our water environment and/or the problems it is facing.

Examples might be:

A photo of our beautiful water wildlife.
A selfie by your favourite river, lake, estuary, wetland, stream, pond or beach.
Your family, friends, or club enjoying their water environment.
A photo that shows the issues facing your local river, lake, beach etc.

Maybe you don’t have time to take a photo but have a fantastic photo you took previously that would work? That’s fine.

When you have the photo, upload it to Twitter or Instagram (it must be a public account), or both!

Include our message that tags the Ministers

On Twitter include the text below in your tweet or click here to generate a tweet with the content:

We need a more ambitious plan with targeted actions to restore ALL our rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Adopt @swanireland’s asks for the RBMP @DarraghOBrienTD & @noonan_malcolm. #RestoreOurWaters

On Instagram include the text below in your post:

We need a more ambitious plan with targeted actions to restore ALL our rivers, lakes and coastal waters. Adopt @sustainablewaternetwork’s asks for the RBMP @darraghobrientd & @malcolmnoonan #RestoreOurWaters

Add your own personal message and post it.

Add your own personal message before or after the campaign text above. It can relate to the photo, one of SWAN’s asks to Restore Our Waters, a concern you have about threats to water, or whatever floats your boat. Once you are happy with it tweet or post it. We’re running the campaign till the 30th of June 2022 so post anytime in June that suits you.

Send your tweet or post to others to like and share

You can help promote your post to others by asking others to share and/or like your post. For example, you could share a link to your post in your WhatsApp groups asking them to share and like your post.

Prize for best photo post

We even have a prize for the best photo post – the book “Ireland’s Rivers” by M. Kelly-Quinn and J.D. Reynolds. So keep an eye on your direct messages in your social media accounts.

T&Cs.

What are SWAN’s 7 key asks?

These are our recommendations to fix the plan and restore our waters to a healthy state.

Why we need action?

Who is SWAN?

The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) is an umbrella network of 25 of Ireland’s leading environmental NGOs, national and regional, working together to protect and restore Ireland’s rivers, lakes, coast and groundwater through coordinated participation in the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Floods Directive, the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other water-related policy.