Every farmer in Ireland has to help address Ireland’s biodiversity crisis, organic farmers as well as big, intensive farmers, according to Minister of State for Agriculture Pippa Hackett.
That means doing a lot more than setting aside a strip of land or a corner of a field to support nature, she told the national biodiversity conference on Wednesday.
With agriculture accounting for over 60 per cent of Ireland’s land area “farmers and food producers have a vital role to play in our national response to the biodiversity crisis”, added Ms Hackett, who has responsibility for land use and biodiversity in the Department of Agriculture.
“Biodiversity doesn’t recognise borders or field boundaries, land parcels or herd numbers. That’s why it’s essential to embrace farming practices that support biodiversity across the whole farm,” she said.
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“Nor should we go down the road of a split within agriculture, whereby one cohort of farmers farms exclusively for nature, and another exclusively for food production,” she warned.
She said she had visited many farmers who had taken what might be seen by some to be commercial risks, because they know the value of biodiversity.
“Farmers who think about building soil carbon and humus are thinking about the future of their farm. Farmers who think about water quality are thinking about their local community. And farmers who are thinking about biodiversity are thinking about delivering for the next generation.”
She acknowledged the scale of the responsibility being placed on farmers.
“We have tasked our farmers with sequestration and storage of the excess carbon in our atmosphere. Not just from the agricultural sector, but from all sectors. No other sector can do this – and that is a huge ask. And that will be one of the huge public good deliveries our farming community can deliver for our nation.”
The same applied to biodiversity but, she underlined, “we know a business as usual approach will not cut it, one where we repeat the same practices of the past number of decades that have led us to this point of biodiversity crisis”.
“We cannot afford to adopt a twin-track approach, with only certain cohorts of farmers incentivised to farm for nature. If we are to tackle the biodiversity crisis, we will have to bring all farmers with us – from the most intensive to the most extensive, and every farmer in between – as we make that shift to an agricultural sector that works for biodiversity, instead of against it.”
She confirmed a new forest strategy for the next 50 years – Project Woodland – would feed into the Government’s next forestry programme from January 2023.
“We know forests contribute hugely to biodiversity and we also know from forests planted in the past that poorly-sited and poorly-managed forests can have an adverse effect on biodiversity.”
Minister for Heritage Malcolm Noonan, who has responsibility for the National Parks & Wildlife Service (NPWS), said Government action over the past two years “has undoubtedly moved Ireland as a whole into a better place for nature”.
But there was need to go further to meet challenging requirements under the EU biodiversity strategy; proposed EU nature restoration law targets and the post-2020 global biodiversity framework about to be finalised on global actions.
“We have made good gains in catching up, but we will have to continue at this pace – both within and beyond the NPWS – if we are to deliver on our obligations for nature and achieve our wider ambitions,” he accepted.
In addition to transforming the NPWS, efforts to protect biodiversity were being scaled up, while the conference would also inform Ireland’s new National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) due in early 2023.
The NPWS was making progress in restoring peatlands, notably overseeing Bord na Móna’s 33,000 hectare scheme to rehabilitate post-industrial cutaway bogs.
An overhaul of wildlife legislation would place a biodiversity duty on State organisations and give statutory teeth to the NBAP, Mr Noonan said.
“A review of the Wildlife Act and birds and habitats regulations is a seminal piece of work that will take a number of years, but it’s vitally important. We’re determined to get it right.”
This would provide stronger statutory underpinnings for national parks and NPWS work in protecting and conserving threatened and endangered animals, plants and habitats in the State, Mr Noonan noted.
He highlighted the small successes including the release of natterjack toadlets; white-tailed sea eagles returning to the wild and sphagnum growing again on rewetted bogs. “These successes are cherished. Some are by chance or at odds with the negative trends and some are hard fought requiring heroic interventions just to save a few eggs from predators. Very often those few eggs represent the entire success or otherwise of a nesting season.”
The Irish Wildlife Trust and Extinction Rebellion Ireland staged a “dead canary in the coal mine” protest outside the conference in Dublin Castle. They called for a biodiversity act similar to the Climate Act to underpin the NBAP citing President Michael D Higgins’ warning in 2019 with regard to Irish wildlife that “if we were coal miners, we would be up to our knees in dead canaries”.
IWT campaign officer Pádraic Fogarty said: “We don’t get a sense of urgency. We need a serious change of gear. This means getting real about biodiversity protection and passing a law that puts the national biodiversity action plan on a legal footing. Without [it], any new plan will be just another paper exercise that delivers nothing on the ground.”
An ER spokeswoman added: “Bird boxes are all very good but they are not going to save us.”
Businesses are being urged to sign up to “business for biodiversity”, a new platform to guide them in taking action to tackle the biodiversity crisis, announced at the conference. Backed by the NPWS, the Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage and Department of Agriculture, it will help businesses to measure, design and demonstrate their biodiversity impact, drawing on a network of expertise led by Natural Capital Ireland, the National Biodiversity Data Centre and Business in the Community Ireland.
“This platform aims to bring businesses together across sectors to assess biodiversity impact, take strategic action across a range of organisational levels, and learn from international best practice in corporate biodiversity governance. Corporate action is an important element of the all-of-society approach required to address biodiversity loss and I encourage all businesses to sign up to the platform, and get involved to help protect, conserve and restore nature,” Mr Noonan said.
