Irish Water will have to wait on a judge's decision over whether it can proceed with plans to lay a sewage pipe through lands owned by the Duke of Devonshire and which would discharge treated waste water into Youghal Bay.

Irish Water will have to wait on a judge’s decision over whether it can proceed with plans to lay a sewage pipe through lands owned by the Duke of Devonshire and which would discharge treated waste water into Youghal Bay.

The ESB, Cork County Council, Inland Fisheries Ireland, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, have been meeting to devise a plan to possibly save an ancient river forest that was flooded 60 years ago.

Independent TD, Michael Fitzmaurice’s criticism of President Michael D Higgins (Irish Examiner, January 7) for his work in transposing the EU Habitats Directives into Irish law, in 1997, which he claims is impeding efforts to dredge the rivers, is typical hot air as the elections near.

The Irish Film Board has broken its silence around the upcoming Star Wars shoot on Skellig Michael by saying it must adhere to confidentiality demands from producers.

Plot owners at one of the country’s most contentious bogs are close to a deal to end their row with the Government.

The Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (CACS) is alarmed at the news that hares are now extinct on Dublin Bay’s North Bull Island, one of Ireland’s most important nature reserves and coincidentally one that for generations had been almost synonymous with the Irish hare.

A political row has flared over a long-running programme to stop the spread of the invasive rhododendron plant in one of the country’s prime tourist attractions.

The tiny protected snail Vertigo Angustior has managed to put a block on US billionaire Donald Trump’s plans to put in place urgent coastal protection works at his Doonbeg golf course.

Defiant turfcutters have been warned that they are breaking Irish and European law by working on protected bogs and have been urged to accept compensation packages.

SOME angler friends tell us they are seeing otters in rivers where they have been very scarce, if observed at all, for many years.

Plans for the €40m Shannon Bridge Crossing are heading for choppy waters after a leading environmental campaigner confirmed his intention to seek a judicial review.

Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney has confirmed Coillte is selling forestry land in Co Donegal by public tender, but the transaction is at the discretion of the company.

The Department of the Environment has taken the unprecedented move of directing a local authority to reverse a rezoning due to concerns over a roost of rare and protected species of bats.

A local authority county manager is at loggerheads with the vast majority of his elected members over a housing zoning beside an internationally important site for a rare bat.

Independent consultants will shortly present an analysis of the environmental impact of the Food Harvest 2020 (FH2020) strategy.

A row which threatened to drag on for weeks was resolved yesterday when talks between high-ranking officials from the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the gardaí, and turfcutters resulted in the end of an 18-hour protest at Clonmoylan bog in Co Galway.

The Government has rejected a proposal which would have allowed turf cutting to continue on Ireland's raised bogs.

CONCERNS for a colony of the protected and rare lesser horseshoe bat has resulted in a local authority putting plans for a proposed paintball facility on hold.

THE state is spending over €125,000 on a national census of otters.

A LOCAL authority yesterday refused planning permission for a contentious 400ft high wind farm due to its likely impact on a protected and rare bird, the Hen Harrier.

THE Department of the Environment has hit out at Clare County Council zoning land for development that could include a stadium on an active floodplain that contains the protected butterfly, the Marsh Fritillary.

THE head of a new mediation body set up to address complaints by rural dwellers banned from cutting turf in ecologically sensitive areas has promised to deal fairly and sensitively with those affected.

ONE thing the state can’t be accused of is letting down the seal population.

A SURE sign of a healthy river is the presence of the freshwater mussel which has largely disappeared in Ireland in recent decades.

NATIONAL Park authorities in Killarney have been given the all-clear to allow treated effluent from an old world café flow into a lakeland area.

NEW laws should help curb the rapid spread of non-native invasive plants and animals around Ireland – something that is causing growing anxiety among people responsible for protecting waterways, nature and the environment in general.

TAXPAYERS are willing to pay farmers to maintain the landscape and biodiversity values of their farms in the Burren region of Co Clare, according to a new survey.

BOG owners who have agreed to sell their land to the Department of the Environment for conservation purposes have been told they will not be paid until 2014.

THERE’S no evidence that beavers were ever in Ireland.

BOG owners have been granted a year-long reprieve from a ban on turf-cutting that is expected to come into force at the start of 2010.

IRELAND’S appalling record on safeguarding endangered wildlife species has come into the spotlight again, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reminding us that key habitats requiring special attention are being neglected by the present government.

Dublin Bay should be designated as a whale sanctuary to protect the population of harbour porpoises, it was claimed today.

THE three chimpanzees have been peering down at me lately from various lampposts. Very cute they are too, placed there courtesy of Dublin-based group Cóir, which claims a membership of 2,000 people. But the Captive Animals Protection Society is not very happy.

CONSERVATION groups have pleaded for action to save the country’s most vulnerable wildlife following a study which shows many animals, plants and habitats are in decline.

Donal Hickey sees new hope for Ireland’s bogland

A DEFINING moment is looming for the future of the Burren in Co Clare, one of the most important landscapes in Europe with a wealth of natural and cultural heritage.

A three-strong Independent Working Group set up to examine the precipitous decline in salmon stocks suggested a ban on all drift-net fishing of salmon to the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources, Noel Dempsey.

WE could yet pay a high price for failing to protect nature sites.

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche is to be asked to use his powers to ensure a controversial caravan park near a Kerry beach is kept open.