Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am thankful for the opportunity to talk about this subject again. It seems to me that there is a bit of a competition in the House on the nature restoration law with various groups wanting to prove they are the ones most opposed to it. This is the second time in a week we have had a lengthy motion essentially calling for an outright rejection of the proposed nature restoration law. One must wonder what nature did to deserve such attention. At least this motion differs from last week's motion where we had a conjuring up of a lurid fantasy of 200,000 cattle being culled in the fields of Ireland.

This is an odd fish because in many parts it is hard to disagree with. It states some basic facts but then ends with just as determined a call for total rejection and demands that various guarantees are inserted. Oddly enough, from my understanding of the proposed and modest law, guarantees are already there to ensure that any rewetting of bogs, for example, is voluntary. This motion, at least, does acknowledge that there is a biodiversity crisis, before going on to explain that it is not as urgent as to require any actual actions, and that anyway it is not just the fault of agriculture - it is the fault of forestry, of invasive species, of urbanisation, and so on. If anyone and everyone is responsible, really it is no one's fault, and certainly nobody can be asked to do anything about it. It seems that Deputies might support a cull on mink as a response, but do not ask them to reduce the dairy herd or even think of restoring the already supposedly protected sites for nature. That would be going too far.

It is odd that having identified the forestry policy as one of the multiple pressures on nature, the motion does not explain why a commercial monoculture policy that has planted an invasive species on lands and bogs for commercial profit has damaged nature here, or why the State's forestry arm, Coillte, is one of the greatest forces for harm to nature and how its latest deal with Gresham House Investments ensures the hardening of policy in the years ahead.

It is also odd that the motion forgets to mention the EU Commission's state of nature report for 2020, which specifically emphasises the negative impact of intensive agriculture, with farmland birds and pollinator habitats being particularly affected. As one of the report's authors said at the time, the report "drives home quite how urgent action has become to save what’s left of Europe’s nature”.

It is worth saying again for the record that we are living in an era of a sixth mass extinction event. The Deputies who propose this and other motions were, like myself, lucky enough to be born at a time of greater species diversity, of greater numbers of pollinators and of lower CO₂levels. We have a sense of what the loss is, or least we should have that sense, because we can see it in real time in the decline of nature all around us. The younger generation, unfortunately, will not know of this, aside from documentaries or records kept in a museum.

If one is arguing here that this law is not good enough, then fair enough. There is, however, a moral, social and political duty on us to propose an alternative, to acknowledge the great and devastating harm done and being done to nature, and to address the issue. The motion here does, at least, address what causes the damage but only to claim that agriculture should not be asked to shoulder a disproportionate burden of any measure. What do we mean by agriculture, especially here in Ireland? I have never heard these Deputies acknowledge that there is a huge class divide in agriculture; mention that farm incomes have such a huge spread of inequality, with many earning less than €10,000 or €20,000 per year while others can earn up to €100,000 or €200,000; or discuss the geographic aspect to that inequality.

We have a broken and unsustainable model of agriculture here that is punishing many ordinary farmers. It has done so for years by pushing a type of intensive dairy model that has enriched a few and made the lives of many farmers more precarious. Addressing the nature and climate crises could be an opportunity to address that inequality and to allow family farms and sustainable agriculture to thrive. It could take on the vested interests of the processors and retailers, for example. It could move away from the insane policy of growing the dairy herd, with all its negative impacts on water quality and on sustainable farming. It could reward farmers for actually feeding the world and not insist they create markets abroad for dairy products.

Once again, this motion taps into the fear that farmers and farming communities feel. Some of that fear is deliberately stoked up with false and misleading takes on this and other measures, but the fears are real. Poorer and smaller farmers rightly fear that they will be asked to make the changes in order to allow larger and more damaging dairy practices, for example, to continue and that rewetting would be banked so carbon credits will allow Goodman-type enterprises to continue with business as usual. This is not a wholly irrational fear. Farmers have seen how this State, at all levels, will push the vested interests of a minority of the rich and wealthy regardless of its impact on our environment or on the majority of farmers.

When ones takes away the bluff and bluster in this and previous motions, what we have is a call for the status quoto remain. While nature may be dying before our eyes, the central message here is not to do anything to address it and certainly not to try to change the business model that has served a few so well.

As I said last week, there is much to be angry about in rural Ireland, including the policies this Government has implemented, with climate change and nature loss among them. Years ago a popular piece of graffiti was doing the rounds. It was an image of a bee and it was saying "If I go, you’re coming with me". It meant that if we lose keystone species like bees - if they perish - our future is in doubt. We are a part of nature. The demand to preserve the status quois a demand to continue the slide into the sixth great extinction event. It does not stop with bees and all Members here would do well to remember that.

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