Ireland 'embarrassingly bad' after '30 years of inaction' on biodiversity crisis
Accountability Their Trust And Individual Said And Can All For Government Consumers Climate Ensure Wildlife While That Niall Photo: Would Departments Sectors Play On Rebellion Irish The Par 2021 And Of Only Part Responsibility Protecting Act, Introduction Wildlife And Private Loss, Biodiversity Carson/pa Halting The The Across Panies Biodiversity A With In Extinction Act,
An act of legislation tackling the biodiversity crisis must be enacted to go hand-in-hand with the recent Climate Act, or Ireland will keep adding to its "30 years of inaction".
That is according to protesters who took part in a demonstration at Dublin Castle on Wednesday, as the first of a two-day National Biodiversity Conference organised by Government departments took place.
Extinction Rebellion and the Irish Wildlife Trust assembled outside the conference wearing hard hats and headlamps as part of the "dead canaries in the coalmine" stunt, which they said was symbolic of "30 years of inaction" on biodiversity.
A number of delegates from the conference, which was attended by Government figures including Housing Minister Darragh O'Brien and Heritage Minister Malcolm Noonan, appeared in solidarity with the protesters.
Extinction Rebellion spokesperson Annette Jorgensen told the that Ireland has been "embarrassingly bad" on biodiversity and that the public is largely unaware of the scale of the crisis, unlike climate change.
Extinction Rebellion and the Irish Wildlife Trust said that while individual consumers and private companies can play their part in halting biodiversity loss, only the introduction of a Biodiversity Act, on par with the 2021 Climate Act, would ensure responsibility and accountability for protecting wildlife across all sectors and Government departments.
The two issues must be tackled in unison, she said.
"There has to be an act of legislation with biodiversity targets, like the Climate Act. There is little point if targets set are not legally binding. There have been a number of previous attempts to address biodiversity but they have failed badly because they were not underpinned by law.
"We would much rather be at home than carry out acts like this protest. We would love to be at home with our families knowing that biodiversity is being restored and that nature is healing. But it is not, so we are determined to act until this crisis is taken as seriously as it should be."
According to figures from the National Biodiversity Centre, some 31,000 species are known to occur in Ireland, but the conservation status of only about 10% has been assessed.
In 2019, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) released Ireland's sixth national report to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, with stark findings that 91% of protected habitats are in poor or inadequate condition, and more than 50% are declining. Some 14% of species assessed are considered to be endangered, it said.
Extinction Rebellion and the Irish Wildlife Trust said that more than 120 native plants and animal species - both on land and in the seas - in Ireland have already gone extinct, and the list of those deemed critically endangered is rapidly growing.
The "canaries in the coalmine" imagery displayed as part of Wednesday's stunt harked back to President Michael D Higgins' comments at the last National Biodiversity Conference three years ago, when he said: “If we were coal miners, we would be up to our knees in dead canaries.”
Ireland has come under fire from the European Commission over biodiversity failures in recent years, with cases being referred to the European Court of Justice.
Under the Habitats Directive, EU member states must designate special areas of conservation (SAC), with specific conservation objectives. Ireland failed to do so within five years, resulting in the Commission taking action in 2020.
Some 154 areas out of 423 were not designated as SACs, although the relevant deadline expired in December 2014, the Commission said.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB