In the general narrative around the crisis that has beset Lough Neagh, Nick Ashley-Cooper, the 45-year-old 12th Earl of Shaftesbury is very often cast as a villain.
The absentee landlord’s family’s claim to the bed of the lough dates from when it was taken by the use of extreme force during the Ulster Plantation, while he has also been accused of amassing a small fortune from sand extraction.
It can be argued that in a historic context the earl’s predecessors are not without blame, however, veteran civil rights campaigner Bernadette McAliskeys’s characterisation of Mr Ashley-Cooper as a “handy scapegoat” for the plight of Lough Neagh is accurate.
Instead, she told this paper last October, “collective failure” was responsible for the environmental catastrophe that has unfolded over decades and manifested in recent years with swathes of toxic algae.
It’s important to remember that the Earl of Shaftesbury isn’t responsible for the combination of slurry run-off, raw sewage and leaching septic tanks that have adversely affected the lough’s water quality. He didn’t introduce the zebra mussels that have exacerbated the problem, or is he responsible for their control.
Responsibility for oversight of this toxic cocktail lies with Stormont and the handful of councils that bound the lough. Until last month, when the executive signed-off an action plan that it hopes will rehabilitate the lough, together they had effectively done nothing while the water became putrefied.
A decade ago, a long-delayed civil servants’ report concluded that there was nothing to be gained from taking the lough into public ownership. The issue was then as good as ignored.
Contrast this with the Earl of Shaftesbury, who even before the current crisis grabbed the headlines was more than happy to engage with politicians and community representatives about the lough’s future.
And while others dithered, he has tabled a potential solution to safeguarding Lough Neagh’s future. It is unclear at present whether the earl wants compensated for transferring ownership of the lough to the community but he has spelled out the other conditions under which he’ll relinquish ownership, and they appear to put the water body’s interests to the fore.
He advocates ownership by a charity or community trust model, and significantly, argues for rights of nature to be included.
The earl also recognises that while many call for public ownership, those whose role is to represent the interests of the public, don’t want the lough.
As efforts to transfer ownership intensify in the months ahead, it would appear then man once regarded as its greatest threat may well turn out to be Lough Neagh’s saviour.
