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Action 20. Upland and Mountain Areas Inventory

Upland or mountain peatland areas in Ireland are lands at or above 200m OD. A range of important habitats and species occur in these upland and mountain areas including mountain blanket bog, wet heath and alpine heath. These habitats are designated under the EU Habitats Directive and a representative sample therefore needs to be designated as SACs and included in the Natura 2000 network.

Erosion and degradation of upland and mountain areas has intensified in recent times as a result of overgrazing by sheep, peat extraction, afforestation, trampling, heather burning, wind turbine installation and telecommunication installations (Douglas 1998, Heritage Council 1999).

With the designation of SACs/NHAs reaching an advanced stage, IPCC are concerned that the information base being used to select and protect these areas is insufficient. There has never been a formal survey of upland and mountain areas by Dúchas. Cabot (1999) estimates that uplands above 300m cover some 4,100,000ha or 5% of the country's surface. As such they are a significant habitat and landscape feature in the country.

As yet Dúchas have only designated 111,000ha of upland habitat as NHAs, representing 3% of the upland area of Ireland. A visual appraisal of the distribution of upland and mountain areas overlain by the distribution map of the network of NHAs indicates that there is a significant lack of coverage of upland and mountain areas within the NHA network particularly in the southern part of the country. IPCC have identified nine mountain ranges in the southern part of the country which are absent in the NHA resource including: Slieve Callan, Slieve Aughty, Slieve Bernagh, Silvermines, Castlecomer Mountains, Knockmealdown Mountains, Nagles Mountains, Boggeragh Mountains and the Mullaghareirk Mountains.

General Objective
To ensure that a representative network of upland and mountain peatland habitats are conserved and that the resource as a whole is used wisely.

IPCC has lobbied Dúchas to undertake a comprehensive survey of upland bogs since 1982. We prepared a detailed report on the status of blanket bogs for the European Commission in 1999 (O'Connell & Foss 1999) which highlighted the deficiencies in the current SAC selection process by Dúchas.

Actions
3.20.1 Survey work must be undertaken by Dúchas to evaluate the nature conservation value of upland and mountain areas and to designate appropriate sites as NHAs/SACs.

3.20.2 Restoration and/or sensitive management of damaged conservation worthy uplands and mountain areas should be undertaken by Dúchas and landowners.