I'm Andrew Upton. I'm the Countryside Manager at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland.
My main remit is to look after Strangford Lough which is the largest sea lough
anywhere in Britain and Ireland. It's the most heavily designated nature conservation site,
and one of only three marine nature reserves in the UK.
What we're seeing on Strangford Lough is erosion of the islands which are important for
breeding seabirds, seal haul-outs. We're also starting to see impacts on the mud flats which are
internationally important for wintering birds that come here.
And as sea level rise starts to kick in those mud flats will start to disappear and there will be less habitat and food for those birds.
We're at Anne's Point which is opposite Mount Stewart. The land that you can see over here
was reclaimed from Strangford Lough several centuries ago for farmland.
And what the Trust did about 13 years ago was breach the sea wall and that allows Strangford Lough to flood into this area.
And what we've done then is create really good habitat for wintering water birds.
And salt marsh is now developing. And the mud flats and salt marsh lock in lots of carbon.
So it's fantastic in terms of helping us mitigate against climate change.
We're on the shores of Strangford Lough at the moment and we're looking across at this internationally important landscape
which is really valuable for all sorts of species of wildlife.
Now we have real concerns that with climate change a lot of these islands, particularly the low-lying ones,
will gradually be submerged, and we will start to see seabird populations starting to decline;
seals losing habitats for breeding and for resting. And those mud flats which provide all the
food for the wintering water birds be submerged. So it's a really big concern for us going forward.
Okay, we're at the Sea Plantation at the moment at Mount Stewart,
and the Sea Plantation fulfils a really important role.
It protects the gardens from the Lough and the salt laden spray which comes off it during storms.
Without that the plants will often get burnt off with the salt. But what we're starting to see as a result of those storms is the erosion of this bank.
And if we allow that to continue eventually the salt water gets into the Sea Plantation,
and then will affect the gardens, the house. And by that we mean the groundwater will be penetrated by salt water.
It will impact on the plants that we can grow there and potentially
it will affect the actual structure of the building underneath. it's important to collect robust data
so we can make informed decisions on what actions need to take place before it's too late.
With climate change we're going to see much more humid conditions.
That may have impact on the collection within the house, so the increased moisture humidity
isn't good for a lot of the collection that we have within this mansion house.
We're in the gardens at Mount Stewart and the gardens here are going to be impacted
by climate change going forward. We will see more intense periods of dry weather,
drought, and conversely more periods of heavy rainfall during the winter.
The gardens that we have at Mount Stewart are one of the top 10 gardens anywhere in the world,
and it's so important to protect them for future generations.
Behind me you can see one of the fields at Mount Stewart, the main, which are grazed by cattle.
When we acquired the estate in 2014 about half the farmland was under arable,
and with the ploughing a lot of carbon is released. So we've converted quite a lot of those fields over to pasture
which means that there is a lot less carbon being released, and that is better for the environment.
Climate change is the single biggest threat to the special places we care for in Northern Ireland.
Coastal sites like Mount Stewart are facing increasingly severe storms and rise in sea levels.
Here in Northern Ireland we urgently need to monitor and manage these changes to our coast
in order to adapt to the climate emergency.