Bad decisions threaten our environment

IN its environmental performance review, the OECD recently praised environmental research and innovation being carried out in Ireland.

While the development of a smart and green economy could make a major contribution to recovery, the Government continues to make poor decisions which threaten the natural environment that provides these opportunities.

Ireland inches ever closer to fines for failing to meet the requirements of EU environmental protection legislation such as the birds directive, and yet we see a raft of paradoxical decision-making preventing the environment from becoming the economic asset that it could and should be.

For example, we see the vital development of renewable energy but at the needless expense of our special birds and habitats, the opening of aquaculture and inshore fisheries without proper assessment of their impact on the very ecosystems upon which they depend and the dumping of one poor agri-environment scheme followed by its replacement with an even poorer imitation, to name but a few.

The knowledge gaps that exist, the decision-making processes around the roll-out of new technologies and the protection of the natural environment in Ireland are severely lacking, something also highlighted in the same OECD review. It is essential that the Government starts to make environmentally sound decisions based on adequate information or else we risk not just fines from the European courts but also further loss both to our future economy and to other social and environmental public benefits.

Alan Lauder

Head of Conservation

BirdWatch Ireland

Kilcoole

Co Wicklow