Working with landowners to protect and restore Ireland's rivers
The scheme includes two rivers in Co Cork, the Shournagh and Sheep Rivers.
Farmers can earn up to €2,000 per hectare for a fenced or uncultivated riverbank strip, up to 20m wide.
This riverside habitat scheme is part of the Waters of LIFE programme offered in five areas nationally.
They include two in Co Cork, the Shournagh area which runs south from Donoughmore to Tower, along the Shournagh and Sheep Rivers, and the Awbeg, Kilbrin area in north Cork, between Kanturk and Mallow, including Castlemagner.
The EU Waters of LIFE project aims to reverse the decline of Ireland's most pristine rivers, by working with landowners and communities to develop new solutions.
In Year two of the project, farmers can get involved early in 2026, until 2028. But they must first submit expressions of interest online before next Sunday, August 31.
Over 250 farmers are already involved in the EU-funded programme, representing 20% of eligible farmers in the project’s five catchment areas.
Entry is open to farmers with a herd or tillage number in the five areas (which were selected because they are at risk of failing to meet a high status objective set for them in the 2022-2027 River Basin Management Plan).
The Waters of LIFE programme also operates in Co Roscommon and Co Galway's Islands area, which takes in Ballinlough, Ballymoe, Granlahan and Williamstown.
Another Waters of LIFE area is based around Lough Graney and Lough Atorick, and the communities of Flagmount, Dromindoora and Caher, in east Clare and south Galway.
The Avonmore Waters of LIFE area runs from Sallygap to Laragh in the Wicklow uplands around the Glenmacnass, Inchivore and Annamoe rivers.
Farmers receive results-based payments, and payments for general and supporting actions.
The programme relates to more intensive agricultural areas and practices. It rewards farmers for the nature value of their land, and funds farmer actions to improve the health of rivers and streams.
Farmers without river frontage are also welcome to enter the programme, to receive payments for habitats and actions. Payments are linked to the environmental quality of a farm, with higher quality resulting in a higher payment.
All participating land, private or commonage, is divided into plots which each receive an annual environmental quality score of zero to 10. The quality of watercourses and, in the case of private lands, of farmyard management, influences the final payment, via a whole-farm assessment.
This makes landowners, their skills, expertise and knowledge of their land central to the Waters of LIFE project, which essentially creates a new market for the environmental services the landowner provides. It opened in 2024 with a request for expressions of interest.
Then, last February and March, Waters of LIFE hosted farm plan clinics, where farmers who had been offered contracts could meet individually with a river catchment scientist, who remains available subsequently for eligible farmers seeking further information and discussion.
While the Waters of LIFE project is primarily focused on protecting and restoring high-status objective rivers, the importance of associated habitats such as woodland and grassland is recognised among the range of factors which can impact on water quality, biodiversity and climate change.
Separately, the €60m Farming for Water EIP will run until 2027, prioritised towards nitrate Areas for Action and High Nitrate-Risk Areas.
