Peatlands Petition hearing in European Parliament
Posted by Bronwen Maher on November 22, 2011 at 05:47 PM
I attended the Peatlands Petition earlier today, which related to the continued extraction of peat from Irish bogs. It was raised in the European Parliament's petition committee by Friends of the Irish Environment (FoIE).
The FoIE raised three main points. Firstly, Ireland’s relationship with its peat is one of exploitation, not conservation. Secondly, there has been a total failure to apply EU law in relation to protected peatlands, and thirdly, this has far-reaching impacts in terms of climate change, biodiversity, water quality, flooding and even the rule of law in Ireland.
Ireland originally agreed to protect its peatlands from extraction when it signed up to the Habitats Directive in 1992. The extraction did not stop; it has in fact only been halted this year, 19 years later. The intervening time has seen extensive loss to our irreplaceable bog lands; to fuel peat-burning power stations, domestic fires and for use in horticulture to grow things like mushrooms.
The slides from the FoIE representative 's presentation can be found here: http://www.friendsoftheirishenvironment.net/peat/links/peat_presentation_eu_petition.pdf
He closed by inviting the petitions committee to Ireland next year to see the damage for themselves, which the committee have provisionally agreed to.In her comments afterwards, MEP Auken from Denmark observed that it was the worst case they had had before the petitions committee in a long time. It was clear that it had been a deliberate policy on the part of the Irish Government to avoid EU law. A representative of the Commission highlighted how Ireland's failure to apply EU law in relation to protected bogs is a long standing one. As far back as 1999 a European Court of Justice (ECJ) judgement found Ireland's legislation on the matter to be insufficient under the Habitat Directive. It was too easy to circumvent the rules applying to turf-cutting, as the rules only applied to big extractions. When Ireland failed to adopt new, more extensive legislation the case returned to the ECJ with the possibility of fines of 20,000 euro a day until the necessary legislation was introduced. In 2005, the government provided evidence that the rules had been changed, and the Commission considered the case closed. However, little changed and even the new (Irish) rules regarding Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) were not implemented. No EIAs have yet been done on bogs from which peat is being extracted, whether they are Natura 2000 bogs or not. In January this year the Commission opened a new case on Ireland's bog lands to draw attention to the systemic failure of the government to take action. This re-opens the possibility of fines if we do not clean up our act.
As I highlighted in my comments on the petition, in effect the new Irish government has inherited the situation in which we now find ourselves. The government have given a commitment to stop all extraction on Natura 2000 bogs, though the matter has yet to be fully resolved. I agreed with MEP Harkin that this issue is an emotive one in Ireland, and that the question of compensation for the owners of the lands must be considered if we are to find a lasting solution. However, though the issue is emotive, there must also be recognition on the part of everyone that the practice is damaging, and at some point it has to cease. As the FoIE representative said in his final summation, turf-cutting may well be part of the turf-cutters heritage, but the natural heritage of Ireland does not belong to any one person or set of people. It belongs to the future generations, and we are allowing it to be destroyed.
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