Special Protection Areas

Dataset owned and provided by NPWS.



http://www.npws.ie/en/ProtectedSites/SpecialProtectionAreasSPAs/



Ireland is a special place for wild birds. We are at the end of major flyways of waterfowl migrating south for the winter from North America, Greenland, Iceland and the Arctic. In spring and summer, Ireland provides important breeding grounds for species from the continent of Europe or Africa. Our long coastlines provide safe breeding and wintering grounds for large numbers of seabirds. In addition we have resident species which are scarce or rare in other parts of Europe.



Because birds migrate long distances, it is not sufficient to protect them over just part of their range, so the EU Birds Directive provides for a network of sites in all Member States to protect birds at their breeding, feeding, roosting and wintering areas. It identifies species which are rare, in danger of extinction or vulnerable to changes in habitat and which need protection.



In Ireland, we have 25 of these species regularly occurring. They include Bewicks and Whooper Swan, Greenland White-Fronted and Barnacle Geese, Corncrake, Golden Plover, Bar-Tailed Godwit, five species of tern, birds of prey including Hen Harrier, Peregrine, Merlin as well as the Nightjar, Kingfisher and Chough.



Specific proposals to designate Special Protection Areas (SPAs) in order to safeguard certain habitats pursuant to EU Directive requirements were recently advertised in the local press and on local radio. These proposals are intended to safeguard the habitat of these selected sites.



The EU Birds Directive (79/409/EEC) requires designation of SPAs for:

Listed rare and vulnerable species such as those mentioned above.

Regularly occurring migratory species, such as ducks, geese and waders.

Wetlands, especially those of international importance, which attract large numbers of migratory birds each year. (Internationally important means that 1% of the population of a species uses the site, or more than 20,000 birds regularly use the site.)

121 SPAs have been designated since 1985. 25 other sites enjoy legal protection and will shortly by designated as SPAs. However, further designations are required pursuant to the Birds Directive. The Minister will be publishing his proposals for the designation of additional sites on an on-going basis in Autumn 2007 and Spring 2008. It should be noted that many existing and future SPAs overlap with SACs. The Irish SPAs join a total of around 3,000 sites across the European Union.

Simple

Alternate title

NPWS SPA
Date (Creation)
2010-10-05
Citation identifier
Coastal Heritage / Heritage Council
Cited responsible party
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

Heritage Council

Beatrice Kelly

mail@heritagecouncil.ie

Point of contact

Heritage Council

Beatrice Kelly

mail@heritagecouncil.ie

Publisher

National Parks & Wildlife Service

Robert Ovington

robert_ovington@environ.ie

Owner
Presentation form
Digital map
Point of contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

Heritage Council

Beatrice Kelly

mail@heritagecouncil.ie

Point of contact

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

  • Environmental monitoring facilities

Special Protection Area

  • Special Protection Area, Heritage Council, Coastal Heritage
Access constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

Seek Permissions
Use limitation

Seek Permissions
Spatial representation type
Vector
Denominator
50000
Language
English
Topic category
  • Environment
Environment description

Microsoft Windows XP Version 5.1 (Build 2600) Service Pack 3; ESRI ArcCatalog 9.3.1.3500
N
S
E
W
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N
S
E
W
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Reference system identifier
TM65_Irish_Grid
Topology level
Geometry only
Geometric object type
Complex
Geometric object count
734

Distributor

Distributor contact
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

National Parks & Wildlife Service
Distributor format
Name Version

SDE Feature Class
Transfer size
0.066
OnLine resource
Protocol Linkage Name

ArcSDE Connection

 		Server=w08-sde93; Service=5273; Database=HCVector; User=HCVectorAdmin; Version=sde.DEFAULT
Transfer size
0.066
OnLine resource
Protocol Linkage Name

ArcSDE Connection

 		Server=w08-sde93; Service=5273; Database=HCVector; User=HCVectorAdmin; Version=sde.DEFAULT
Statement

Dataset provided by NPWS. Dataset downloaded from NPWS 06th October 2010.



For further information contact www.npws.ie.

Metadata

File identifier
97be9ee3-1e78-41e0-8b09-a571443a7180 XML
Metadata language
English
Character set
UTF8
Hierarchy level
Dataset
Hierarchy level name

dataset
Date stamp
2010-11-17T13:13:28
Metadata standard name

Based on ISO 19115:2005/19139:2007 INSPIRE Directive 2007/2/EC Metadata Implementing Rules
Metadata standard version

1.2 INSPIRE Metadata Implementing Rules
Metadata author
Organisation name Individual name Electronic mail address Role

Compass Informatics

Ali Robinson

arobinson@compass.ie

Point of contact
 
 

Overviews

Spatial extent

thumbnail

Keywords

GEMET - INSPIRE themes, version 1.0

Environmental monitoring facilities
Special Protection Area

Special Protection Area, Heritage Council, Coastal Heritage


Provided by

Access to the catalogue