South Dublin Branch News

IFA response to proposals to Designate Special Protection Area (SPAs) for Hen Harriers. - Seán MacConnell, The Irish Times, 08.11.2007 The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has criticised Minister for the Environment John Gormley for designating 169,000 hectares of land for the protection of the Hen Harrier without properly consulting the farmers involved. Martin Gavin, of the IFA, said the designation would impact on 5,500 farmers whose farming and development plans would be restricted by the designations. He criticised the Minister for imposing a three-month deadline on appeals to the designations. Farmers have until February 8th, 2008 to make an appeal. "IFA believes that farmers should consider the implications of designations that will arise on farming, forestry and wind farm development" he said. "The payments to farmers for losses incurred in the proposed designated area are not satisfactory, especially for those farmers who will be joining the Reps 4 scheme. The Minister has conveniently ignored a commitment agreed by his counter-part in agriculture, Mary Coughlan, in the Rural Development Plan 2007 - 2013," he said. He said the plan made a commitment to top-up farming losses if the payment for farming restrictions was greater than that applicable under Rural Environment Protection Scheme (Reps). Mr Gavin said in the Hen Harrier areas, the Farm Plan Scheme will pay €350/hectare on up to 40 hectares. Because this payment was greater than the €282/hectare that applies under Reps 4, farmers should be eligible for a top-up payment of €68/hectare, he said. The Friends of the Irish Environment said it would challenge the designations in Europe because the Minister is allowing forestry to be planted in six of the areas involved, "This agreement permits a further planting of more than 9,000 hectares in these last strongholds of the Hen Harrier," the group said.

Proposals to Designate Special Protection Area (SPAs) for Hen Harriers. - 07.11.2007 The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr John Gormley today (7 Nov 2007) announced specific proposals to designate Special Protection Areas (SPAs), primarily for the protection of Hen Harriers. This bird is listed on Annex 1 of the Birds Directive and therefore Ireland is required to designate a suite of SPAs for its protection. The hen harrier is a medium-sized bird of prey, with a small breeding population of 130-150 pairs in Ireland. Their breeding habitat is found on low hills, particularly in Counties Kerry, Limerick, Cork, Clare and Galway. The Minister said: "One of our obligations as an EU member State is to protect places important to birds. The EU Birds Directive (79/409/EEC) requires the designation of sites in each Member State to protect birds at their breeding, feeding, roosting and wintering areas".

In total six sites are to be designated as SPAs: 1. Slieve Bloom Mountains pSPA, Co.s Laois & Offaly 2. Stack's to Mullaghareirk Mountains, West Limerick Hills and Mount Eagle pSPA, Co.s Cork, Kerry & Limerick 3. Mullaghanish to Musheramore Mountains pSPA, Co. Cork 4. Slievefelim to Silvermines Mountains pSPA, Co.s Limerick & Tipperary 5. Slieve Beagh pSPA, Co. Monaghan 6. Slieve Aughty Mountains pSPA, Co.s Clare & Galway As part of this exercise 5,500 landowners in these sites will be individually notified. Adverts will appear in local papers and will go out from radio stations from Wednesday 7th November 2007. "Landowners who wish to object to the proposed designations will have until 8 February 2008 to do so. There is a generous compensation package available to those who enter into a five-year management plan with my department".

New Protocol to protect Hen Harrier ... - Sean Mac Connell, The Irish Times, 28.03.2007 An agreement has been reached between Government and forestry and farming groups which will allow afforestation in areas designated for the protection of the hen harrier, one of Ireland's most endangered birds. A forestry management protocol covering Special Prrotection Areas important to the hen harrier will be introduced, which will allow an annual quota of new plantings in the six areas involved.

The protection areas, which will be designated shortly, are in the Slieve Bloom mountains (Laois and Offaly); Stack's to Muilaghareirk mountains, West Limerick hills and Mount Eagle (Cork, Kerry and Limerick); Mullaghanish to Musheramore (Cork); Slieve Felim to Silvermines (Limerick and Tipperary); Slieve Beagh (Monaghan) and Slieve Aughty mountains (Clare and Galway). A blanket ban on planting forestry in the areas concerned to protect the bird had caused conflict between the farmers, foresters and the Governrnent. The key component of the agreement reached is that an annual quota of new planting will be established for each of the six proposed Special Protection Areas, based on the areas identified as available for planting by National Parks and Wildlife Service, so as to manage and monitor the impact on habitat. Under the new rules, the heath-bog habitat which is so important for the hen harrier will be fully preserved. The objective will be to establish a mosaic of different landscape types in hen harrier areas that will encourage the further development of the species. This should include young forestry, both new and replanted, which the recent research has shown to be a vital component in the foraging pattern of the bird. Making the announcement, the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, said the agreement reached represented a balance between good and sensible environmental practice and the legitimate desire for sustainabie development in the areas involved. The Forest Service will be responsible for processing forestry applications, and will implement the new protocol immediately. All applications for approval to plant in the areas had been suspended pending agreement on the new management regime, but it was now expected that decisions, could be made quickly in these cases. The Irish Farmers' Association's farm forestry chairman John Jackson has welcomed the agreement on a protocol "A quota system has been allocated for each of the six areas... Although planting on heath and bog will be restricted, farmers wanting to plant other types of land should be facilitated by this agreement". "Any farmers who have been held up from planting over the last few months should be able to plant in the current year," according to Mr Jackson.

Hen Harrier to get 80,000 acres of protected habitat .. - The Irish Times. About 80,000 acres (~32,380Ha) in the Kerry/west Limerick area and parts of north Cork are expected to be covered by measures being prepared to protect the threatened Hen Harrier. A formal process for designating lower mountain, marshland and moor land in the southwest as Special Protected Areas (SPA) for hen harriers will get under way in the coming months, the Department of the Environment has confirmed.

It is understood the EU Commission is anxious the process gets started shortly. Ireland is obliged to take measures to protect the bird, listed for protection as an Annex 1 species in the EU Birds Directive. However, wildlife experts warn there has been a flood of forestry applications in advance of the designation and the habitat of the harrier will be severely reduced when these plantations mature. The bird of prey has suffered drastic decline with the loss of marsh and moor land since the 1970s. It is now mainly found in the north Cork, west Limerick and north Kerry region, with only about 130 pairs left. It is over two years since proposals for the designation of areas were publicly mooted. The proposals sparked a furore within the farming community because of the restrictions such a designation would have on wind farms and forestry. At one stage, in west Limerick, over 800 farmers attended a public meeting on the issue, and the Kerryman newspaper in Tralee was sent a dead hen harrier. Last year, a large 29-turbine wind farm at Knockacummer, Co Cork, was turned down on appeal by a heritage group to An Bord Pleanála because it was felt its scale would interfere with the birds. Kerry County Council's own wind policy has designated a number of areas as suitable. Chief among these is the Stacks mountain area, a region important to the harrier. Tim Burkitt, a conservation ranger with the Wildlife Service in north Cork/Kerry, said forestry applications were being pushed in "to beat the band" in advance of the SPA. The Hen Harrier likes to hunt over a mix of scrub and moor land. The type of forestry being put into much of the moor land area is Sitka spruce. While the harrier could cope with young spruce plantations, in 10 years' time much of the habitat designated will be destroyed if all the forestry goes ahead, said Mr Burkitt. - Anne Lucey.

- This is "Irish conservation" on the cheap again. While this state boasts the smallest percentage of public owned national parks and wildlife reserves in Europe, it is recalcitrant even designating SPAs under the EU's Natura 2000 regime which falls well short of accepted international practice, being a "cheap and chearful" way out. Unless the land is owned and managed for conservation, or the owners are paid to do so, there is no guarantee of any continuity of habitat protection under EU SPAs as is all too evident above.

Conservation Site designations National Parks, SACs, SPAs, etc. Hen Harriers Controversy over SPAs.