Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein)

Biodiversity affects everyone in every part of the country. Biodiversity week offers an important opportunity to examine this critical part of life on our planet. It is not just nature for the planet; it is for human beings, too. It is for everybody and we are all a part of that.

It is crucial we take a serious approach to tackling the biodiversity crisis in Ireland. Farmers manage and own the vast majority of land on the island. While there are other agencies which are part of that and play a vital role, farming is the key thing we have to crack in order to turn around this biodiversity crisis. Agriculture often gets a bad name when we talk about climate change and biodiversity but, in reality, farmers have been to the forefront and have for decades been well aware of the need to protect our habitats and biodiversity and to prevent the extinction of species. Irish farmers have consistently adapted farming practices, going back to meet the challenges of climate change over the years. It was 1994 when the first rural environmental scheme was introduced and farmers willingly and enthusiastically entered into the highly successful measures to protect our watercourses and our rivers as well as planting trees, hedgerows and so on at the time. Irish farmers have continued to participate in environmental schemes as part of CAP, including REPS, AEOS, GLAS and now, of course, ACRES. There are huge problems in respect of ACRES but, at its core, it is a biodiversity plan for farmland across the country. We want to encourage more farmers to be in it but it is very hard to do so if they do not get paid in time or it is not followed up, the whole thing turns into a mess and everyone blames a computer system for it. There needs to be recognition that if we want to get this work done we have to have a partnership between everybody, and agriculture is key to that partnership.

I refer to the schemes which have contributed to improving our biodiversity in various species. We used to see bat boxes up on trees around our part of the country as well as owl boxes and sand mounds for bees in the corners of meadows. There is a need to provide bird cover by not cutting meadows until late August into September to allow ground birds to nest and so on. All these are vital parts. That is why we must have a much greater emphasis on biodiversity.

There was something that always struck me about the basic payment scheme whereby farmers get paid per hectare. Farmers would get a map which was captured by a satellite and be told that they would be penalised in how much they would receive because the hedgerows had grown wider and therefore the land area was smaller. If a farmer had applied for 24.9 ha they would be paid for less than that and be penalised. So what did they do the next year? They cut all the hedgerows out of the way. That was absolutely detrimental to biodiversity. There is a need for more joined-up thinking. It is very important that farmers are part of the plan in respect of all this.

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