P r e s s R e l e a s e

IPCC lobbies for more raised bogs to be designated SACs

For release 29 June 1998

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council (IPCC) is calling for every intact raised bog remaining in Ireland to be declared a Special Area of Conservation (SAC).

As part of this campaign IPCC has submitted a report entitled Irish Raised Bogs, Special Areas of Conservation to the EU Commissioner for Environment and Nuclear Safety Madame Ritt Bjerregaard.

This report outlines the arguments supporting the call to designate additional raised bog SACs in Ireland - a further 4,993ha as active raised bog SACs and 9,683ha as degraded SACs. This project has been funded by IPCC members.

Similar moves have been made in the UK by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, an umbrella body of conservation groups

The report points out that Ireland has not as yet submitted a formal list of SACs to the European Commission. Under the EU Habitats Directive the deadline for submitting a full list was June 1995. The Government is currently facing legal action by the EU as a result. IPCC has expressed concern that while the Government continues to delay, many raised bogs that have been included on the their indicative list of SACs are being damaged by on-going development.

IPCC have lodged details of their submission to Síle de Valera, Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands.

Raised bogs occur in only 8 European countries. Severe losses of this resource across the European range means that today only 46,552ha remain. In some countries such as the Netherlands and Germany the habitat is close to extinction. In Ireland while the loss of raised bog has been severe, the Republic still holds 23,527ha (51%) of the Community's resource of conservation-worthy oceanic raised bogs.

The additional sites proposed by IPCC for SAC designation occur in 3 cluster concentrations and in a belt transect running across the country from Kildare to Galway as follows:

Mayo/Roscommon cluster

Upper Shannon/Lough Ree cluster

Lower Shannon/Little Brosna cluster

Bog of Allen Transect from Kildare to Galway

Three of these concentrations of raised bogs occur in areas that have been subject to intensive industrial peat extraction. In the Mayo/Roscommon area, there has been centuries of peat cutting by hand.

In total the IPCC has submitted a comprehensive list of 113 new sites that it considers worthy of SAC status. These are in addition to the 35 sites that the Irish Government has suggested for designation as SAC.

"If we are to protect a representative sample of Ireland's raised bogs the number of sites designated as SACs under the EU Habitats Directive needs to be exceptionally high to offset the huge losses of wildlife in those areas and the lack of any legal protection for conservation worthy raised bogs," says Dr Catherine O'Connell, Head of Education at IPCC.

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