Six new biodiversity officers are to be recruited in six local authorities around the country by the end of 2022, Minister for Heritage and Electoral Reform Malcolm Noonan has announced.

This pilot programme for 2022 has been allocated €600,000 in funding, Minister Noonan told the National Biodiversity Conference in Dublin Castle on Wednesday 8 June.

The move represents a further step in the acceleration of Ireland’s National Biodiversity Action Plan in response to the biodiversity crisis, the Department of Housing said in a statement.

It added that it also follows up on a Programme for Government commitment to ensure that all local authorities have a sufficient number of biodiversity and heritage officers among their staff complement.

The programme is being delivered by the Heritage Council and the County and City Management Association (CCMA) with the support of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).

“We need to connect top-down and bottom-up approaches to biodiversity loss.

“Local authorities have a key role in relation to ensuring that our national policies on biodiversity are implemented and integrated on the ground,” Minister Noonan said.

Biodiversity officers, he added, can ensure that this happens by putting biodiversity front and centre of local authority operations.

“They will be the local, public face of biodiversity activities, bringing action and awareness among communities of the benefits of biodiversity,” Noonan added.

Biodiversity issues

Heritage Council chair Martina Moloney said: “This is a hugely positive development which will go a long way towards addressing some of the major biodiversity issues that confront us in this country on a local and national level.

“Our local authority heritage officer network has been of enormous benefit to heritage in this country, and our role in delivering this new network of biodiversity officers, in partnership with the CCMA and Local Government, will see these crucial appointments deliver similarly successful results.”

Public awareness of the biodiversity crisis has never been more acute and this development has come at the perfect time, Heritage Council CEO Virginia Teehan said.