Mr. Fintan Kelly:

On Senator O'Reilly's point about acceptance for land use change, there is an aspect to this discussion that I do not see raised that often. The Government has very ambitious targets for afforestation. Currently under Irish law, afforestation implies a permanent land use change. If a farmer plants the land with sitka spruce, that land has to stay in forestry. From our scientific observations, the dominant model of forestry in Ireland is resulting in a lot of biodiversity loss, with significant impacts on high-nature-value farmland. There is also a lot of water pollution which impacts on high-status water bodies that support things like freshwater crab, mussels and salmon. Where afforestation has taken place on deep peats or organic soils, there are significant greenhouse gas emissions.

By contrast, rewetting of agricultural land could actually allow ongoing farming activities. It would enhance biodiversity in many cases and it would deliver positive climate benefits and may result in positive water quality benefits. There has been very little resistance to the draft forestry programme from many farming representatives. I do not want to undermine what the farmers have been saying. I totally hear it and I respect everything they have said and I concur that there is a lot of concern on the ground about rewetting. However, I would throw that perspective out there that in many ways, forestry is a more dramatic form of land use change, and there has not been the same level of resistance.