Dr. James Moran:

As for making a certification scheme simple for farmers, it would involve developing a simple scoring system on a field-by-field basis. Quite simply, in the case of the scoring systems that have been developed so far, an improved agricultural grassland on peat soils, with a water table that is 1 m or more below the surface of the ground for the vast majority of the year, is low scoring and is actively emitting carbon. If the water table has risen, that will increase the number of wetland plants and there will be more sedges and other types of plants within that. We have developed simple colour and picture guides to identify these plants on the trials in the midlands and throughout the west. If the farm raises the water table 0.5 m or so close to the surface, with some wetland plants coming in, that could be a medium score. They are very high scores, at the top of the surface. They have sphagnum mosses growing on them, which are easily identified. They are moss-dominated and sedge-dominated, as opposed to grass-dominated, fields. We can easily see this with pictures.

Alongside this, we conduct the monitoring in situat the same time to verify what exactly the carbon emissions are on that first case that I described, whether the medium quality or the high quality. We have this certification scheme in place that is monitored by local teams. The farmers get an advisory and it is exactly the same as what we are doing in the midlands. A certain proportion of this can be certified and monitored by the inspectorate within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine or set up within the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

We have been doing this for the past ten to 15 years in the Burren, with certification for biodiversity and water on a simple scoring system. We have been doing it on the European innovation partnerships for peatlands in the upland areas for the past five years. Now we can do it in this context in the coming years.