Conservation ranger numbers to be increased amid scourge of illegal gorse fires

File photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie

As the country continues to battle the scourge of gorse fires, a recruitment campaign is due to begin for conservation rangers to join the 72 currently in place across the country.

The recruitment campaign comes as the debate goes on as to how illegal gorse fires and other biodiversity threats are tackled, with heritage minister Malcolm Noonan conceding that prosecution of offences is limited.

In response to a query from the Irish Examiner on plans to recruit more rangers across the country, the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage said they "are deployed through a regional structure and assignments are determined in light of Departmental business needs and priorities".

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has 72 NPWS conservation ranger posts stationed across the country, and a new recruitment panel for rangers is being set up, with interviews due to be held shortly, the department said. 

A decision on the numbers to be recruited from this panel is yet to finalised, it added, and the jobs will be contingent on funding.

Any appointments that arise across the country "will take account of both the business needs and financial resources to meet pay costs" in the context of public sector pay and staffing, it said.

The recruitment of rangers is separate to the newly proposed Wildlife Crime Unit, which is still under development, according to the department.

"We are not yet in a position to provide specific staffing numbers in relation to this unit," it said.

Mr Noonan told the Dáil that rangers had told him of difficulties in prosecuting people who start illegal gorse fires.

March 1 saw the ending of the legal land burning period in Ireland until August 31 under the wildlife legislation.

However, the previous months saw emergency services around the country put under strain as they tackled blazes, while crews across the country have been engaged in gorse firefighting since the beginning of this month, after the deadline.

Mr Noonan said: "I understand from the conversation I had...with the rangers on the ground that it is notoriously difficult to secure prosecutions and to catch people in these situations."

Technology such as drones is being employed for better monitoring, he said.

"Increased patrols, drones and other technologies to help in that regard are being deployed at all times, along with the additional work with the fire services."

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the NPWS, and the Department of Agriculture, are working to tackle the root cause of these fires, according to Mr Noonan.

[Gorse 🔥] Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that we are talking about a national park, an area that is one of our few protected areas & we do not even have a management plan for it. We do not have a plan that states biodiversity protection is No. 1 priority. That is key pic.twitter.com/Cb6m1wefFp

— Jennifer Whitmore TD (@WhitmoreJen) March 12, 2021

"It is important as we enter into an opening up of the country in the coming months that everybody behaves responsibly around our uplands, nature reserves and national parks because they have proven to be a huge asset to us over the past year in particular," he said.

He was speaking in response to Social Democrat spokesperson on climate, environment and biodiversity, Jen Whitmore, who said people are tired of these fires happening every year. 

"Each year this happens, there are calls for more penalties and greater investigations, but each year it happens. We need a rethink and to look again at how we are managing this problem because the solutions that are being put in place are not working."

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