Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "notes:

— the need to reverse the decline in nature and biodiversity, and to ensure the resilience of our planet and our food production;

— the work underway to develop the Nature Restoration Regulation at a European level, and the compromise text, agreed by the Council of the European Union, on a proposal for a Nature Restoration Law; and

— the upcoming negotiations between the European institutions; and

supports the development of a Nature Restoration Regulation, which both protects nature and ensures the future vitality and viability of Irish farming and rural communities.".

I thank Deputies Fitzmaurice, Harkin and McNamara for tabling this important motion. I acknowledge their bona fides in doing so and the fact that they have contributed to a constructive debate on the matter.

The upcoming Montreal global biodiversity framework, which the EU and its member states signed up to at COP15 in December, contains goals and targets to protect and restore nature that will guide national biodiversity strategic action plans throughout the world in the coming years. The EU biodiversity strategy likewise calls for targets and transformative action to restore biodiversity in Europe. One of the commitments under that strategy is to make a proposal on legally binding EU nature restoration targets. The proposed regulation on nature restoration, also known as the nature restoration law, aims to fulfil this commitment. It is significant EU legislation and will have an impact on all areas of society, not just farming. It will produce restoration targets across a wide range of land uses throughout rural and urban environments, including lands in agricultural use and under forestry as well as the marine.

Ireland supports the ambition and principles underpinning the proposal, but it has worked continuously with the EU Presidency and other member states to produce a version of the regulation that strikes a balance between keeping the ambitious goals for nature restoration originally proposed by the Commission and providing flexibility for member states in the regulation’s implementation while keeping a level playing field and reducing the administrative burden. Ireland’s effort, among others, has resulted in a European Council general approach that sees significant flexibility in the requirements, including a softening of the targets in respect of the restoration of agricultural lands, an alignment of the marine requirements with the marine strategy framework directive, and a move from targets to trend-based evidence in respect of urban ecosystems. Ireland voted in favour of the Council Presidency’s proposals at the ministerial Council meeting in Luxembourg on 20 June. They now form the Council’s general approach, as endorsed by the member states. Ireland will continue to work closely with EU colleagues and institutions to seek clarity on alignment and correlation between nature, food, fisheries, agriculture, climate, energy and transport policies at Union level.

I will try to address the specific concerns raised in the motion. The restoration of habitats, particularly drained agricultural peatlands, is of concern to farmers. However, restoration does not necessarily mean the cessation of current land use. Rather, it is an opportunity to work with landowners in order to reach agreed restoration objectives. The definition of “rewetting” proposed in the general approach is a process of changing a drained peat soil into a wet soil. This definition allows Ireland to determine for ourselves what “rewetting” means in our national circumstances. In addition, targets for the restoration of peatlands have been moderated to 30% of drained peatlands under agricultural use by 2030, with one quarter of the area to be rewetted. This increases to 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050, with half of the area to be rewetted and the remainder to be restored through other methods. The general approach also includes an agreed new paragraph that allows member states that are heavily affected to apply a lower percentage to the rewetting requirement.

In Ireland, the estimated amount of drained peatland under agricultural use is approximately 332,000 ha. When the targets I have set out are applied, this means that we will have an obligation to rewet just under 25,000 ha by 2030. Allowing for the flexibilities in the proposal, this is lower than the restoration targets already set out in policy under the national Climate Action Plan, which includes a commitment to rewet 33,000 ha of Bord na Móna land by 2030 and 77,600 ha overall. In addition, the Commission has confirmed that the restoration works under way at the time the regulation comes into force can count towards targets. This means that the commitment to 77,600 ha of peatland rehabilitation using Bord na Móna lands under the Climate Action Plan can count towards overall restoration targets if that work is under way by the time the regulation comes into effect. In turn, this could reduce the demand on landowners.

It has always been, and continues to be, the Government’s position that any contribution to rewetting targets by private landowners will be voluntary and incentivised. This has been stated publicly several times at various forums. The nature and scale of the incentives will be developed as part of the development of the national nature restoration plan.

On the specific question that Deputy Fitzmaurice raised about the protection of current practices such as hill grazing, the definition in the regulation relates to putting measures in place to restore habitat areas listed in annex No. 1 of the habitats directive where there have been known losses. Many of the habitats, such as heaths and grasslands, depend on sustainable agricultural practices such as grazing to maintain them.

Regarding the concerns raised about rewetting's adverse effects on adjoining lands, I draw the House’s attention to the site-specific restoration plan for the raised bog natural heritage areas that have been developed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, NPWS, and the Department using the most up-to-date scientific methodologies available and best practice models gained from other projects, such as Coillte, EU LIFE and Bord na Móna’s restoration programme. Restoration plans have been developed to ensure that restoration work’s impact on surrounding agricultural land is kept to a minimum. By raising the water table, it is not intended to flood the land, but to ensure that it remains wet enough to encourage the growth of sphagnum moss within a protected site. In order to help allay concerns about the potential impact of restoration on areas of land adjacent to the now designated bogs, the NPWS has developed drainage management plans for raised bog special areas of conservation, SACs, as part of the national restoration programme. These plans ensure that water flow paths are assessed and potential impacts on adjacent lands are remediated.

There is still a need for clarity around issues of alignment and correlation between nature, food, fisheries, agriculture, climate, energy and transport policies at a Union level as well as a need to align the EU regional goals and targets with international commitments.

These areas will be clarified as we work towards developing nature restoration plans. Ireland will continue to engage with the Commission and colleagues in other member states in this regard.

The proposed regulation provides an opportunity for transformative change in achieving nature restoration in Ireland and the EU as a whole. However, planning and achieving the legally-binding targets set out within the timescales given will be challenging and will require considerable effort and additional capacity to develop. The next steps will include a requirement for each key Department, including the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, to undertake as a priority an analysis of the likely sectoral impacts in order to inform a coherent national impact assessment, including the economic costs arising, as relevant. This will include a full national impact assessment of the proposals, including those economic costs. I will draw the Minister's attention to Deputy Fitzmaurice's proposal around the social costs as well. Each key Department will need to allocate the necessary resources and expertise to engage fully in the development of the national restoration plan, its implementation and monitoring, and reporting on the required actions thereafter in accordance with the timeframes and milestones agreed as part of the regulation.

No one is in doubt, as the Government amendment states, that there is an urgent need to reverse the decline in nature and biodiversity. However, we will do this with continued engagement with stakeholders from across all sectors and in this process that is a fundamental element of the development of the national restoration plan.

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