A leaders’ forum attended by 80 delegates on Tuesday marked the start of consultation on the development and implementation of the plan Ireland will use to meeting EU Nature Restoration Law targets.

Farming organisations, environmental NGOs, state agencies, business representatives and academia were among the delegates invited to the consultation in Dublin.

The law was passed last summer and requires each EU member state to draw up a national restoration plan over two years that sets out how targets will be met and to identify which lands are to be prioritised for restoration actions for 2030’s targets.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is steering the development of the plan and an independent advisory group chaired by Dr Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin will advise Government on its content.

Work cannot commence on drawing up the plan itself until a baseline is established off which progress will be assessed.

Tuesday’s meeting was focused on establishing the principles that will guide the development of the plan and the implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Law over the decades to come.

The forum is to reconvene again late into the summer.

INHFA designation concerns

One of the first concerns put to the NPWS came from Irish Nature and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) president Vincent Roddy, who warned that the previous approach taken to nature conservation by imposing land designations would not be acceptable to farmers.

“I am here as a farmer who has been operating on designated land in a special area of conservation over the past number of years,” Roddy told the room.

“When we look at how the designations have been applied, the impact those designations have had on farmers, the absolute abhorrence most farmers have for designations and the fact that it has been said here that designations have not just failed for farmers, but they have failed for nature.

“I think everyone has to understand that most farmers are going to look at this and say, ‘Are we going to be thrown under the bus again?’ Because there is no point in saying otherwise. We have been thrown under the bus with designations,” Roddy said.

Andy Bleasdale of the NPWS denied that the EU Nature Restoration Law will impose designations, but the meeting also heard that the law does not allow for backsliding on any progress from the baseline assessment of habitats and nature.

Nature restoration ‘already underway’

Opening the forum in Dublin, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Christopher O’Sullivan stated that there are examples of schemes and programmes already in play which will inform the approach taken to nature restoration.

O’Sullivan pointed to the five-year EU-funded corncrake LIFE project as one of these examples, adding that a “lot of the work is already being done” to restore nature.

“This event is the first step in an extensive consultation process to co-create a national nature restoration plan that is ambitious, achievable and inclusive, delivering benefits for nature, our communities and our quality of life,” he said.

“To succeed, we need an all of society response including environmental, scientific, academic, farming, forestry, fisheries stakeholders across both public and private sectors.”