Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

If nature were relying on sweet words, sweet descriptions and commitments made in this Chamber, we would not have an issue, one fifth of our species would not be threatened with extinction, and one third of our bee species would not be threatened with extinction, nor would half our rivers and lakes be in unsatisfactory condition. We would not have report after report telling us how decimated our natural world. If we were relying on the commitments made on both sides of this House on nature, we and nature would be pretty safe. Unfortunately, when it comes to the crunch, I am not sure whether nature will be able to rely on the statements made in the Dáil today. As a working-class girl who got involved as an ecologist when she was 17, I find that very upsetting, frustrating and anger-inducing. We know what we need to do and have known for years. Plans, policies, laws, NGOs and international organisations state what we need to do, yet our nature is still suffering.

I acknowledge the work the Minister of State has done. The work of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, in particular, is really positive. I am aware the Minister of State is putting the frameworks in place. It just takes time for those frameworks to take effect. I appreciate the Minister of State's point that the journey is not short but long and that whoever is in government in the next term will have to take the task on board and continue. However, there are things that could be done now that would have an immediate effect. I will focus on just one. Sixty-three percent of Irish bird species are in decline. Every year, licences are issued to hunters so birds of conservation concern can be shot. Fifteen species are amber-listed or red-listed by BirdWatch Ireland. I cannot understand how we can have all this talk about protecting nature and increasing the number of species while, at the same, the Department and Minister whose role is to protect species are enabling them to be shot or hunted.

I introduced today a Bill for the protection of the hare, a protected species. Again, the same legislation that is in place to protect the hare is used to facilitate and issue licences that result in the very opposite of protection. I do not understand it.

I welcome that the Minister of State has said he will bring heads of Bill to the Houses in a few weeks' time to amend the Wildlife Act 1976. I would ask that he make those two changes because they would both have an immediate impact on nature in Ireland. It would signal Government's commitment to ensuring biodiversity loss is halted, and we need it halted. When I look at both sides of the Chamber, I do not know whether any such Bill would get across the line. I ask that when we, as politicians, talk about biodiversity, we start taking into account the science and the evidence. I ask that we give those greater weight than the lobby groups and those few vocal voices that are stopping us and have stopped us for decades from protecting our environment. Nature cannot wait any longer to be taken seriously and science cannot wait any longer for that to happen. Our grandchildren will not thank us for not dealing with this now.

When I was younger you would frequently hear curlews and cuckoos. You would see these species everywhere but if you talk to any child now they have no idea what we are talking about. This is happening during our lifetimes. It is not some crisis that is overseas and is not tangible. We have seen it and each of us here knows what nature was like when we were younger. We know what has been lost but our children do not, and that is the biggest risk. The shifting baseline syndrome is the biggest risk because the next generation of politicians to come in here will not know what has been lost. We have spoken about this for so long.

I grew up listening to and watching Éamon de Buitléar, a Wicklow man who encompassed and knew what we needed to do in our environment. In 1997 he said:

We aren't realising what we stand to lose... our language, our culture, our countryside – it's all intertwined. It's us, it's what we are. If we don't look after it, who will?

That job is now on us.

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