Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein)
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9. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the reason, if his Department is encouraging farmers to use controlled burning as an option for land management, that when a green low-carbon agri-environmental scheme planner recommends controlled burning, it results in his Department deeming land as potentially ineligible for payment under the basic payment scheme and the natural constraints scheme by his Department. [34213/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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My Department recognises that controlled burning, properly planned and properly carried out, has a role to play in land management. This role is not just with regard to land-eligibility, but it can also play a beneficial role with regard to habitat conservation and enhancement. In particular, burning has traditionally been used to help manage land in upland areas and is one of the means by which these important habitats were created in the first place, followed by a balanced grazing regime. In more recent times, however, much of the knowledge of how and when to burn land correctly has been lost as the farming activity on these upland zones decreased. Most of these areas are commonages, and many are now seriously under-grazed, which has had a detrimental effect on both land eligibility and biodiversity.

Under GLAS, one of our main objectives is to restore these uplands to agricultural and environmental health. To do that, we have created a specific measure within the new scheme that encourages shareholders on commonages to come together and draw up a new Commonage Management Plan with the help of a trained GLAS commonage advisor. The main component of this plan is a new grazing regime on every commonage, which is tailored to the needs of that commonage, and to which each shareholder must now commit and contribute. Within that plan we have also provided for the possibility of supplementary actions, including controlled burning. If that is to form part of the new management regime, it must be planned properly and carried out in strict accordance with the relevant legislation. Where burning takes place in full compliance with these requirements, there is no issue in relation to land eligibility.

The Guide to Land Eligibility, which issued to farmers this spring, makes this quite clear when it states as follows: "Where land has been burned, it is not in a state suitable for grazing or cultivation and therefore is not eligible. The exception to this is where controlled burning is carried out in full compliance with all relevant environmental legislative requirements and any other lawful requirements, having first consulted with and notified the Gardaí and the local fire service. In the case of Natura lands (lands designated as SAC and/or SPA), prior approval must be obtained through the Activities Requiring Consent (ARC) system as implemented by NPWS."