Opinion: land use change rules must be changed to tackle biodiversity loss

Driving through west Cork last week, I saw the most frustrating scene – a farmer who had recently cleared heath and scrub habitat to replace it with a monoculture of ryegrass was now enrolled in ACRES and had planted trees in some remaining heath.

The first rule of nature restoration should always be to protect what we have. Sadly, we are not doing that.

Just a few decades ago, farmers spent much of their time holding nature at bay in a constant battle of wills. It’s only since the 1960s that the availability of fossil fuels and machinery has tipped the balance of power in favour of farmers. Without adequate protections in place, nature has been left in an imperiled state.

American sociobiologist Edward O Wilson encapsulated this dilemma well when he said: “We have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology, and it’s terrifically dangerous.”

Machines such as excavators must indeed have seemed god-like to the generation that grew up with the ox or horse and cart in Ireland. These machines could do the work of hundreds of men, and transformed the possibilities of what could be done with land. Marshes, bogs and woodlands once deemed unmanageable could now be converted into grassland or commercial forestry.

And many thousands were. Between 1990 and 2018, the Irish State lost 646,850 acres of wetland and peatland.

Progress to stem the flow of destruction has been made in some sectors. Afforestation, for example, is now very prescriptive in terms of where it is allowed and not. To a lesser extent, SACs and SPAs (covering just 13.6% of the country) have been afforded some protection.

Regulatory framework

Land use change in agriculture, on the other hand, still operates within a relatively loose regulatory framework.

The Department of Agriculture document ‘Environmental Impact Assessment (Agriculture) Regulations – Guide for Farmers’ allows for re-contouring (levelling off/infilling) of land of up to 4.5ac without permission.

Restructuring of land holdings and reclamation of uncultivated or semi natural land may be undertaken up to 12.5ac. Furthermore, up to 37ac of land can be drained without seeking permission.

A few fields over from my place there are the most gorgeous meadows.

For as long as anyone locally can remember they’ve been cut once a year at the end of July.

All the old field boundaries and hedges remain in place and in high summer they are alive with insects and birds. Under the current rules, this mini nature reserve could be obliterated overnight.

The Department regulations include the caveat that permission must be sought if “the proposed works may have a significant effect on the environment”.

However, they give no information on what that actually means, or who gets to decide.

Undoubtedly, any attempt to tighten up the current rules will be met with ire by farmers and farm organisations, who will complain that the right to farm on private land is being completely eroded.

In some ways, I have sympathy for this position; nature is a prolific force, making farming a difficult and sometimes ugly profession. Actions such as hedge-cutting, scrub clearance, and drain management are essential, and yet they are regularly presented by low-information environmentalists as “ecocide”.

There is a fear among farmers that nothing will appease these critics. While they may be wrong in regard to the detail, the critics are right in terms of sentiment – biodiversity loss is happening, and farming bears much of the responsibility.

Support

Farmers need to accept this.

While they may own the farms, we all have skin in the game when it comes to biodiversity loss.

Actions that were allowed in the past are no longer acceptable, and rightly so.

Instead of railing against this, farmers need to become effective at getting the support they need to protect the natural world, alongside producing food.

The public can’t expect farmers to do this work for the good of their own health, but at the same time it’s fair that they ask farmers to acknowledge nature as having some innate value.

There is an odd sense of entitlement on the part of some farmers around what they should be able to do on their own land.

It has been fascinating to hear some commentators suggest that if Ireland isn’t allowed to keep its nitrogen derogation, farmers will have no choice but to clear habitats to create new land to divide their nitrates into.

While their concerns around derogation loss are serious, even existential for some, the false dilemma that’s presented (if we don’t get X, we’ll have no choice but to do Y) is hard to stomach.

No group or sector should be allowed to hold the natural world as a hostage to fortune.

We are now in a crisis and Ireland’s remaining habitats need robust protection.

Simply banning their destruction won’t work.

We know this from the painful experience of Natura 2000 land designations; 30 years on, 85% of the designated habitats are in poor condition.

As with many things, the solution will require a balance between the carrot and the stick.

For many farmers, on-farm habitats left alone are an opportunity cost, at least in financial terms.

It is clear to me that the finances of habitat retention must be at least neutral, but preferably tangibly beneficial to farmers.

This means the State applying monetary and regulatory value to habitats.

Biodiversity loss

By not doing so, it undermines its own message that biodiversity loss is important.

Ray Ó Foghlú is an environmental scientist and woodland conservationist He is the farm programmes co-ordinator with the Hometree charity.