Government accepts its conservation areas list is inadequate

The Government has admitted its published list of proposed Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) for Ireland is insufficient, and extra protection for salmon will be necessary.

While the move will lessen the likelihood that the European Commission will take the Government to the European Court for delays in finalising SACs, farmer organisations are likely to resist strongly the extension of the controversial scheme, which has already placed restrictions on land use, especially along large sections of the western seaboard. The British government has also been forced to concede that much more land needs to be designated.

The Irish admission came at a meeting this week in Kilkee, Co Clare, which brought together more than 50 scientists, including leading European conservationists and wildlife experts, to compare SAC designations in the north Atlantic region.

It was held under the Commission's Natura 2000 initiative to protect important habitats.

Pressed by Irish conservationists, who released a highly critical interim report on the published Irish designations the day before the conference, officials of Duchas agreed to expand substantially the list of habitats and to designate sites for the salmon and the otter, two species unprotected in Ireland under the directive up to now.

"Our research showed that not only was the published list of habitat sites inadequate, both in coverage and in distribution, but that specific critical species listed in the directive have been entirely ignored. This was upheld at the Kilkee conference," they said yesterday. The group includes An Taisce, the Irish Peatland Conservation Council, the Irish Wildlife Trust, Birdwatch Ireland, and Coastwatch Europe.

They welcomed the Government's "recognition of the scale of the problem of the inadequacies of its list" and its commitment to rectify the shortfall. But they were disappointed at the general lack of commitment shown by EU member-states to date, with many key habitats entirely missing or confined to a single site.