P r e s s R e l e a s
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For Release November 26 1997
The Government's commitment to the declared conservation target of 10,000ha of active raised bog was questioned by one of the country's leading environmental organisations at the recent Peatland 2000 Conference held in Dublin and organised by the Irish Peatland Conservation Council.
IPCC Chairman Dr Peter Foss noted that to date only 3,000ha of raised bog had been purchased by the Government for conservation at very little expense to the Exchequer, as the EU have funded 75% of the cost.
Dr Foss is gravely concerned that precious Life Funding under the EU Habitats Directive has been lost this year because a definitive list of SACs was not forthcoming from the Department of the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.
The IPCC is seeking an urgent meeting with the Minister for the Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Miss Sile de Valera to discuss the issue of raised bog conservation and to see how they might advance efforts to protect a representative sample of these precious ecological habitats before they are all lost.
Dr Foss has urged the Minister to see that more EU funding is not lost through inaction in 1998 and wants her department to put forward a minimum of 13,500ha of raised bog for Special Area of Conservation (SAC) designation in the active raised bog cagory of this Directive and submit this list to Europe.
The IPCC also seek the remaining raised bog NHAs (Natural Heritage Areas) to be included in the degraded raised bog category thus bringing the total raised bog area protected as SACs to 23,665ha.
"This is the minimum area that should be designated to ensure that a representative sample of this habitat is conserved in the Atlantic Biogeographical Region of Europe," he said.
There are fears now that Ireland may lose further funding in 1998 because there is still no definitive list prepared for submission. It is understood that Denmark is in the same predicament and only a provisional list has been submitted under this important EU Directive.
Dr Foss has informed the Minister that the overall consensus reached at the Peatlands 2000 Conference which attracted 180 delegates from a broad range of interests, was that although 8,500ha of raised bogs have been proposed as SACs there appears to be a reluctance on the part of the National Parks and Wildlife Service to declare any further areas.
"This is unacceptable when one considers that we still have 23,665ha of raised bog that has a high conservation value. This represents 51% of the remaining global resource of this bogland type," Dr Foss said, "making them a priority for action.
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