Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. For some reason, I thought we had five minutes. I will get straight into the questions as opposed to making the big, broad statement I had intended. I will just say that I am delighted we are having this session specifically focused on biodiversity. This session needed to happen, regardless of which committee dealt with it, because of the dire state of biodiversity right across the world but specifically here in Europe. I am delighted, therefore, that we are having this session and thank the speakers for coming before us. Maybe there will be a second round where I can comment further on the state of biodiversity in Ireland.

I want to bring things back to where we are at the moment. We were putting together our climate action plan during the summer. Much of what we were hoping to focus on in these sessions, besides learning about biodiversity and the mainly negative impact we are having on it, was how, in our climate action plan we can both address and improve biodiversity but also link that into our goal of reducing emissions by 51% by 2030, or the overall goal of being carbon-neutral by 2050. To that end, I might direct this question to Dr. Stout. Where rewilding projects are concerned, are there any international examples we can look to, be they in Europe or the UK, where rewilding has successfully happened and what form it has taken? She mentioned, for example, how peatland restoration can increase carbon capture but I have also read papers about salt marshes and wetlands. Dr. Stout mentioned how they will protect against coastal surges. However, I have read papers which state that, per hectare, there is 40% more carbon captured in wetlands and salt marshes than there is in the same area of Amazon rainforest, for example. Are there examples like that we can look to so when we are putting together our climate action plan they can be included? Thus, they would not just be increasing biodiversity and having lavish ecosystems but also helping to capture carbon. She also mentioned farmers being penalised for having habitat on their farms. Does she have any faith in the upcoming Farm to Fork strategy and the intention, by the beginning of 2023, to have a proper, funded agri-environment scheme that no longer penalises farmers for having habitats on their land but incentivises them to have it?