Dr. Anita Donaghy:

There are a few key points that we would like to see for GLAS in the new CAP, one of the most important being specialist advice to farmers who are implementing measures for farmland birds and other biodiversity. There are some good options for that in GLAS but there is not nearly enough guidance for farmers. Farmland birds sometimes have quite complex requirements and through testing of the various schemes undertaken, we have seen that the provision of specialist advice to farmers can greatly increase the results from these schemes in terms of biodiversity. The biodiversity return is far higher where the farmer has access to specialist ecological advice.

Another point would be longer-term management agreements. This could be difficult to implement in respect of the CAP cycles we are dealing with now. Most agri-environment schemes last for five years. If that is compared with the forestry scheme where the returns on investment are far longer term, that is an option that farmers sometimes take because of the long-term security compared with GLAS, which offers a much shorter return. Very often, to implement change at the farm level that will really have a positive impact on biodiversity it is necessary to have much longer-term agreements because it can take many years to reverse some of the damage done as a result of the intensification of agriculture. Longer-term agreements, landscape scale agreements, co-operative payments for farmers who are working together to deliver biodiversity at the landscape scale would also be very important, as would the new eco-scheme that is being talked about as part of the next CAP agreement. Some actions need to be undertaken by all farmers because some will reduce nutrient levels. The burden cannot just fall on a few farmers to implement those actions. All farmers, even the most intensive ones have contributions that they can and should make to get what is essentially public money.

We have engaged through the curlew task force with the forestry division of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on guidelines for assessing applications for forestry. Some good work has been done in the Department, for example, the forestry division has introduced new guidelines to protect curlew sites but that is the only action. We would want to see a greater and wider application of measures to protect birds from afforestation.