Nature restoration participation must be voluntary - Fitzmaurice

Future legislation enacted by the Dáil to implement the Nature Restoration Law (NRL) must categorically state that farmer involvement is voluntary.

Funding must also be provided for the NRL and guaranteed for 20 to 30 years, a number of contributors told an Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) meeting in Galway this week.

Under the NRL, Ireland is committed to putting measures in place to restore 30% of its drained peatlands by 2030, with at least one-quarter of this area being rewet.

“The first thing that needs to be done when the [NRL] consultation is happening is that the word voluntary be put into the law,” Michael Fitzmaurice TD told the meeting.

“Because, up to now, everybody has been telling us that it [the NRL] will be voluntary, but they’ve been afraid to put it down on paper,” the Roscommon-Galway TD said.

Enshrined

The farming organisations needed to focus on getting the word voluntary “enshrined in law” with regard to the NRL, he maintained.

The independent TD echoed contributions from the floor of the meeting - which was held on the Clonberne farm of Mícheál Haverty and attracted a crowd of close to 200 - that long-term funding needed to be put in place to compensate farmers for income foregone and the additional costs associated with tighter environmental controls.

He pointed to the experience of farmers who had land designated in the 1990s and who subsequently lost compensation payments, but the farming restrictions remained in place.

“We have to be agreeing a 20- or 30-year compensation deal [for the NRL] or forget about it,” Deputy Fitzmaurice said.

Áinle Ní Bhriain of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) insisted that the NRL will be “incentivised” and “voluntary” for farmers.

The success of the law will be dependent on the participation of farmers and buy-in by farmers, she said.

“This plan will only work if yee make it work,” Ní Bhriain told the farmers present.

She insisted that there were flexibilities built into the law and that the Irish rewetting targets could be reduced if the State’s “public interests” were at risk.

Ní Bhriain also told the meeting that there is “sufficient capacity in State-owned lands” to reach the rewetting targets to 2030 and beyond.

However, she admitted to not knowing what will happen where some farmers with peatlands opt to have their lands rewet but their neighbours do not.

“That’s where protections will have to be considered,” Ní Bhriain said.

Host Mícheál Haverty said farming was in his blood and that he wanted “to stay at it”.

He expressed serious reservations about the impact of the NRL on farmers like him who are working peat soils.

“I want to stay farming and I’d like to give the lads [his children] the option to farm. If they don’t want to [farm], then that’s their choice, but I want that choice to be theirs,” Haverty said.