Dr Kevin Lynch

Good morning, David.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, definitely.

Our sand dunes are under severe pressure, not just from natural pressures, but from all the visitors.

We're just so lucky here.

I know there's heat waves all over Europe the last few weeks and it's too hot for people.

And it's just perfect weather here in Ireland for it.

So we get a lot of pressure from people visiting the sand dunes.

Yeah, exactly.

So just the sheer height of them and width of them and flexibility of them takes a lot of the energy out of storms and protects us from coastal storms.

So they're something we get for free as a coastal protection.

And, you know, we're delighted with that.

So we're trying to look after them a bit more, try to protect them a bit more so that we can get that benefit into the future.

yeah that's it and it's both the ones that run around and fly around and the plants themselves so the plants are very important they bind the sand together and the root systems really hold it together and if we're trampling on top of it you know they die quite easily even though it's a really harsh environment for them with the salt and the sea and everything that they actually are quite tough in that sense but if we stand on them and walk on them then they die off and that kind of releases the sand

and it it's wind erosion then at that stage so we have to try and avoid that i suppose one of the the problems is a lot of um teams and sports teams are are very interested in stamina training and and you know one particular team from the southwest one in all ireland a few years ago and the front the headline on the paper the following day was because they were running up and down sand dunes for the winter so that's a very uh that's a very tough one on the sand dunes to have a you know an inter-county team running up and down so

You know, it's that level and it's the everyday visitors as well that can put real pressure on them.

Yeah, more or less.

Stick to the paths.

If there's any marked paths or marked ways to go, stick to those.

Enjoy the beach.