Leap years help us all to hurdle a timekeeping problem for everyone

Just so you know, Julius Caesar is the man to blame for that!

He invented the leap year in 64BC, 64 years before the birth of Christ world.

Caesar, of course, didn’t call it “64BC”. He had no idea what was “coming done the turnpike”, as Americans like to say.

The world owes you, the ‘leap year-ers’, for taking a hit for the rest of us. Without a leap year, timekeeping would be an absolute nightmare.

Despite what we learned at school, the earth does not actually go around the sun in 365 days – it’s more like 365 days and another six hours.

Julius Caesar thought everybody’s life would be easier if we ‘leapt over’ the six hours, and ignored them until there were enough to make a whole day. Smart move!

Nobody seems to have objected. People were smarter more than 2,000 years ago than you might think.

The way things are going on the planet, humans might well be extinct by the year 4,000, but if not, I would hazard a guess that our descendants are more likely to look back on our times and remark that people in the Twentieth Century weren’t even half as smart as they imagined ...

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Talking of smart moves, while ‘fine words butter no parsnips’, it was encouraging to see all political parties support the Sinn Féin Motion, as amended, on Lough Neagh.

The action point of the wordy Motion (and who am I to complain of an excess of words?) was “to put in place a new management structure and plan to include input from communities and organisations with an interest in the welfare of the Lough, so that it can be managed, protected and promoted in the interest of all”.

The Alliance Party, whose party member is the new Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs, suggested the amendment “to include relevant non-governmental organisations”, which Sinn Féin accepted graciously.

Just as well, otherwise two key players in the problem and the solution – the new independent Environment Protection Agency proposed by new Minister, and NI Water – would have been left out of the input altogether.

In closing the debate, Sinn Féin National Chairman Declan Kearney MLA put on record his position in favour of public ownership.

That view was not included within the Motion, no doubt in order to maximise unity.

It would, therefore, also make sense that the current private owner of a significant part of the bed of Lough Neagh and its shoreline, regardless of how the Shaftesbury Estate acquired it, also needs to be a contributor to both the management plan, the enforcement of regulations, and the cost of implementation.

I hope the new Minister appropriately mentioned accountability, input and financial investment in his conversation last week with Lord Shaftesbury and his advisors.

Like Julius Caesar in the matter of leap years, the young Lord has both power and responsibility in relation to protecting Lough Neagh, and is, having met him myself, smarter and more open-minded than others credit him, notwithstanding the strong evidence of Cahir Healey, a former MP for Fermanagh, that his ancestors diddled the King.

On the downside, during the debate, the Assembly Chamber looked ominously like the British House of Commons when Northern Ireland matters are being raised.

Butter for those parsnips might be scarce even if it is marked ‘Not for sale within the EU’.

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Did you know? Human beings are not the only subjects who can seek protection under international human rights law.

In 2020, a judgment rendered in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found that the human right to a healthy environment protects “as an autonomous right of [...] components of the environment, such as forests, rivers and seas, as legal interests in themselves, even in the absence of the certainty or evidence of a risk to individuals”.

This is an interesting legal concept generally referred to as the ‘Rights of Nature’.

The idea is not an abstract one. More than 20 years ago, Ecuador became the first country in the world to recognise the Rights of Nature in its national constitution, effectively placing an imperative duty on the government and citizens to ensure Nature is protected, restored, and can regenerate its life cycles.

Friends of the Earth are among those advocating for the Rights of Nature approach to be adopted as a legal framework within the UK, which doesn’t have a constitution, just a working arrangement with the Monarchy, and there is also a similar growing movement South of the Border, where they do have a constitution.

Friends of the Earth have been researching what a Recovery Plan for Lough Neagh might look like.

I was privileged to be invited to take part in one of the panel discussions at a very participative event held in relation to that ongoing work.

Those interested can see a four-minute film on YouTube of the Friends of the Earth event, at: http://tinyurl.com/mtep5mfz.

The organisation wrote to every MLA prior to the Lough Neagh debate, setting out five principles which should underpin any management plan and which reflects the Rights of Nature approach.

This would establish Lough Neagh’s ‘right of nature’ to exist, to regenerate and to flourish, within a legal framework.

Those concerned for Lough Erne and the lakes and waterways of Fermanagh might want to give the Rights of Nature concept some thought before their plight reaches crisis levels.

A Northern Ireland Bill of Rights would have been useful here, if we had one.

Another interesting recommendation from the group was establishing a Citizen’s Assembly and Citizen’s Jury for Lough Neagh, presumably to hold to account those responsible for the various areas of its management, recovery and continued sustainability, and to ensure what they described as a ‘Just Settlement’ for communities of people, and communities of wildlife around the lough, and in the watershed of the lough.