In general 'being close to land' and agriculture is a death sentence for biodiversity and the environment. One can argue this has always been the case but has greatly accelerated with onslaught of industrial farming techniques in the 1950s. Ireland has 0.1% of its land under native forest cover, the lowest in Europe, and also the lowest levels of organic agriculture...hence our plummeting biodiversity levels. Solutions are only taken seriously in terms of how profitable (in monetary terms) they are to land owners and the economy in general...the usual short-term thinking pervades.