Positive signs for Irish wildlife in 2008

I WONDER what the prospects are for Irish wildlife in 2008? I remember in 2007 a news story saying 171 Irish plant species were threatened with extinction because of climate change.

And I remember it was the year when the Irish government was given a rap over the knuckles by the EU for failing to give adequate protection to breeding corncrakes and sandwich terns.

On the other hand in 2007 there was evidence that measures to protect our breeding salmon were proving to be a rapid and dramatic success. And of course it was the year the Greens got into government and John Gormley became Minister for the Environment with responsibility for the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

To me most of this is good news.

On the face of it 171 threatened plant species doesn’t sound like good news. But in fact 2007 will, I believe, enter history as the year the threat of climate change started to be taken very seriously.

Climate change is a very big subject and the main emphasis has been, quite naturally, on the survival of the human species. But at the same time there has been a growing realisation that greenhouse gasses threaten all life on earth. The word “bio-diversity” is being used more often and by people who have never used it before.

The now hackneyed photograph of the lonely polar bear standing on the little ice floe struck a chord with people and helped to place a new value and a new urgency on the conservation of wildlife.

The corncrakes and the sandwich terns made the headlines. But EU pressure on Ireland is on a much broader front than just two species of bird. We don’t have enough SACs and other protected areas for wildlife.

In fact we’re second from bottom in the European league table.

The reason for this is largely political. Politicians at a local level have lobbied against conservation areas because they’ve been afraid of alienating their constituents who actually own the land. In many cases their fears were probably unfounded because there is growing evidence of a more positive attitude, particularly among farmers, towards conservation. This is even more obvious if some kind of compensation is on offer.

But nowadays the EU complaints arrive on the desk of a minister who is a member of the Green Party, a party with an absolute commitment to preserving bio-diversity. It’s reasonable to assume the directions he gives to his civil servants in the National Parks and Wildlife Service will have a different emphasis. We might start to climb back up that league table.

The ban on drift netting for salmon and other conservation measures which included restrictions on fishing for salmon with rod and line were also largely the result of international pressure. But in the heel of the hunt when the Government eventually gave in to the pressure they did the job properly and showed unusual courage.

Would it be too much to hope that in 2008 they might do something for our vanishing sea trout runs by tightening the regulations governing the location and operation of salmon farms? All of this could be interpreted another way. But New Year’s Eve is not the right day for pessimism. It should be an occasion to celebrate the beauty of the wildlife of this country and to hope that it prospers in 2008.

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