Professor Yvonne Buckley:

If we do not consider biodiversity at all in this Bill, or leave it as it is currently worded, then we run the risk of losing the capacity to respond to climate change shocks that are coming down the road at us over the next 20 or 30 years. We know that Ireland is going to be in line for drier summers, for example, and wetter, more waterlogged, winters. If we lose biodiversity from the system, we may lose the ability to have food systems that are resilient and that can recover from those kinds of shocks. For example, if we are still in the market for pasture-based livestock production, we will need pastures that are able to cope with summer drought and winter waterlogging in the same year, and we need biodiversity to help us to do that. One species cannot cope with those kinds of conditions, so we will need a suite of species to be able to do that. We will need a number of different species in our hedgerows, woodlands and forests so that, given the very variable weather conditions, we can still maintain carbon sequestration over the long term. This will mean that even if some species do poorly in one year or other, other species will do well. We can only get that kind of resilience through a biodiverse, healthy, functioning ecosystem.

If we continue to degrade biodiversity, we lose that ability for ecosystems to be able to resist the kind of shocks we are going to throw at them in the future. This will threaten our ability to put in place nature-based solutions over the long term and to maintain the kinds of carbon sequestration rates that are going on in our natural ecosystems now. That is one area of significant risk.