Dr. Humberto Delgado Rosa:

I will reply to the questions as well as I can and I will start by discussing peatland where in the sense that Ireland certainly has much peatland, including in agricultural use. It is not really a single case in that other member states, such as the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Poland and others also have quite a proportion. I will discuss here what this means for Ireland, specifically.

First, peatlands and wetlands in general, but peatland in particular play a crucial role in climate change mitigation in that they are the richest ecosystems for carbon sinks. From a mere climate policy perspective, irrespective of the nature restoration law, it makes a great deal of sense to consider rewetting peatland for the sake of the climate. We have been very keen in all of the policies we do deriving from the European Green Deal to ensure coherence. I am referring here to the land use, land change and forestry regulation, which requires many more carbon sinks from member states. In the case of those states which have the potential to use peatland for that; that would appear to be a reasonable choice for climate policy.

One distinction to be made is that, again, within peatland there are peatland habitats which are protected by new law in the case of climate. I refer here to waste bogs and blanket bogs, for which the duty to restore pre-existed, as I said before.

The Senator is actually referring to this rewetting of drained peatland in agricultural use, which is aimed to greatly benefit the climate and biodiversity. I have already given the reasons because much of the emissions from agriculture come from this kind of agricultural use.

I must stress there is a great number of flexibility clauses, as I already said. What are the flexibility aspects? First, this entails that the areas for restoration only cover part of drained peatlands. This is 30% up to 2030 and up to 70% by 2050. By 2030, only one quarter of these lands are to be rewetted and by 2050, half of these lands must be rewetted. Rewetting means raising the water table. The level of this depends on different circumstances but should, in any case, be raised to a level where there is a benefit for the climate in the lands' resumption as peatland.

Many of the possible restoration measures do not exclude farming, in the sense that there are some more extensive usages of grassland, for instance, which will indeed remain even when one rewets. If one fully rewets, of course, the change is more fundamental.

That is why there are two further elements of flexibility. One is allowing the restoration or rewetting on peat extraction sites, which also exist abundantly in Ireland. Further restoration measures arise with other peatlands, for example, with those lands where forests have been planted on drained peatlands. This then is to say that as far as the numbers that I see are concerned, it is an Irish decision as to how much this policy is applied to drained peatland under agricultural use, or to other peat extraction sites. It could theoretically be possible to achieve the full 2030 targets exclusively through other options, if so desired by Ireland.

A further point I would like to mention is what this means for Ireland. Ireland had already decided on some rewetting of drained peatlands before the nature restoration law came into existence on grounds of climate. Ireland’s climate action plan and its plans to climatise agriculture already include provisions on rewetting peatland which apparently or possibly - I do not have the exact figures with me now - are as ambitious or more ambitious than what is in the nature restoration law. This is to say that we are not preaching to member states on exactly how to do it, or the extent to which these states address this policy to agricultural lands, as such. That will depend on particular circumstances but we are certainly showing the trend that is coherent with other policies that we need to have addressed, mostly because of the commitments of member states for climate policy.

I would like to make one comment where the Senator asked about the CAP funding.

One should remember that what we propose for agricultural ecosystems in general entails some changes to practices but this change is wholly compatible with maintaining farming and even benefiting productivity from the angle of what nature can give back in the context of pollinators, soil, nutrients, water etc. The targets being proposed are also fully coherent and aligned with other targets we will find in the EU's biodiversity strategy for 2030. In the farm-to-fork strategy, for instance, we talk about organic agriculture, reducing the use and risk of pesticides, the loss of nutrients, the 10% biodiversity landscape features etc.

Much of what was proposed and planned by member states in their CAP strategic plans through the ecosystem schemes and rural development measures are already in the same line as what the restoration in agricultural land would require. It is true what the Senator said in that the CAP in the past, mostly from 2014 to 2022, had no specific protection clause concerning cross-compliance or green protection of wetlands. Indirectly, though, through the green system, there was indeed protection of sensitive permanent grassland designation throughout agri-environment and climate measures that also covered some types of grasslands, wetlands and peatlands. With the new CAP now, however, the precise new conditionality that exists in the so-called good agricultural and environmental conditions, GAEC 2, standards on the protection of wetland and peatland is very much aligned with the nature restoration proposed. Member states, therefore, in their strategic plans, and Ireland notably, have provisions applicable to these areas in their own plans. We therefore aim and hope towards coherence.

The Senator asked about the impact assessment. I do not have specific figures for Ireland. Our impact assessment was mainly based on those from studies, and these can be provided later. I do not have the figures for all the member states with me or the studies on which they were based.

Turning to food security, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has started - there is a report on this - on the links between nature restoration and food security. It has concluded that in the long run, the best ally of food security is indeed nature restoration and, by the way, also climate action. This is because if we lose pollinators, then we also lose soil etc. Food security is then indeed at risk. Climate change and biodiversity loss is a big pressure on food security and here we are also precisely addressing this issue through nature restoration.