It is high time to put in place a moratorium on any development on or through special areas of conservation (SACs) in Ireland. It doesn’t matter if the development is a road, a house or a greenway. Such is the crisis of biodiversity – a crisis that special areas of conservation were designated to avoid – we have little option but to do so if we are serious about conserving and restoring Irish biodiversity and arresting species loss.
Such SACs (there are 439 in Ireland) have been the plaything of developers and planners for decades – aided and abetted by planning authorities only too willing to sacrifice our heritage for short-term economic gain. Lax enforcement of the laws in the past – a fact strikingly highlighted by the recent Citizens’ Assembly report on biodiversity loss – must now give way to a much stricter implementation of the letter and the spirit of the law.
The dramatic loss of biodiversity is truly a gamechanger and ought to stiffen the resolve of the Government and planners alike in ensuring that SACs remain both special and are in fact actually conserved.
Ireland was the second country in the world to officially declare a national biodiversity emergency in 2019 – when it also declared a climate emergency as the two issues are closely interconnected. To his credit, Minister for Heritage Malcolm Noonan has extensively commented on this biodiversity emergency, stating in 2021 Ireland is losing species at a worrying rate, whereby “much of this trend is down to the declining state and range of habitats”.
He is right to be concerned. Biodiversity holds enormous untapped potential for medical and scientific breakthroughs. It can help us adapt to climate change. Healthy nature is also critical to the wellbeing of pollinators. Less biodiversity means more risk of disease. And, as many have pointed out, biodiversity is on the brink, which will not just affect us but also future generations.
The new EU biodiversity strategy (2021-2030) frankly concedes not enough has been done to conserve and restore biodiversity across Europe over several decades. Indeed, the strategy aims to measurably increase (not decrease) the amount of European land effectively set aside and protected by SACs. Seldom discussed is the UN convention on biological diversity – a treaty Ireland has ratified. The UN strategic plan for biodiversity specifically calls on governments like ours to ensure biodiversity is enforced across a range of sectors, including the planning sector.
One of the pioneering ways that the EU sought to advance and protect biodiversity was through the far-seeing 1992 habitats directive. Essentially, it empowered governments to set aside land in order to conserve valuable fauna (wildlife) or flora (organic matter like flowers) as well as habitats that sustain them (such as turloughs).
Each government transposed the directive into their own laws and policies. Ireland did so through a series of statutory instruments. Essentially, these instruments provided the criteria by which the Government could designate an SAC. A full listing of designated SACs is maintained on the website of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Each designated SAC itemises the “qualifying interests” that led to its designation. For instance, SAC 000606 covering Lake Fingall in Ballinderreen, Co Galway, lists no fewer than seven qualifying interests of European-level value including turloughs and the lesser horseshoe bat. A “conservation target” is then explicitly set for each qualifying interest. Governments are expected to report to the European Commission every seven years on progress made and obstacles encountered.
Most of the language of the habitats directive is quite technical – ecologists talking to ecologists. That is a pity, because the bottom line is that all citizens have an important public interest in maintaining the integrity of SACs. Curiously, it contains provisions for positive action measures to elevate the status of the relevant habitats – although precious little seems to have been done to effectuate this in Ireland in the past 30 years; a fact also highlighted by the Citizens’ Assembly.
Unfortunately, over the years SACs seem to have been viewed as temporary inconveniences to be easily overcome when countervailing considerations of development arise. Until the mid-2000s this was justified by invoking an exceptional provision in the directive that allowed for development if there were “imperative reasons of overriding public interest” (article 6.4). Ireland was roundly criticised by the Court of Justice of the EU for allowing far too much leeway in using this exception. New guidance was then issued by the Irish government in 2010 to planning authorities to the effect that reliance on this exception should be truly exceptional.
This did not, however, stop the development. It might still proceed if it could be shown, through an “appropriate assessment” that the proposal would not have a “significant impact” on the SAC (article 6.3). There is a Kafkaesque quality to this assessment – some form of impact might be assumed but its implications could always be refuted by pointing to evidence that demonstrated no significant impact on the “qualifying interests” of the SAC in question.
Studies could then be commissioned to “prove” the proposition – thus harnessing taxpayers’ money in the process. And so the merry-go-round continued. This arguably violated the spirit if not the letter of the EU directive. The result was and is a steady loss of SAC land to the detriment of present and future generations. Hardly a good way of advancing biodiversity in Europe.
For its part, the Citizens’ Assembly notes Ireland has a poor reputation on implementation of EU nature legislation and “even habitats and species afforded the strictest protection under the directive are deteriorating; 85 per cent of the protected habitats are still in unfavourable conservation status”.
None of this is academic. At present, Galway County Council is proposing to run a paved greenway through an SAC close to the village of Ballinderreen (SAC 000606). Greenways are good – but should never be pursued at the long-term costs of degrading an SAC and thus diminishing biodiversity. One touted “advantage” of the preferred route is that the SAC is scenic. Of course it is. That’s why it is an SAC!
The planners appear convinced (prior to conducting any impact studies) that the proposed development will have little or no significant impact on the SAC. This stretches credulity. The development of an old laneway through the SAC will give rise to a qualitative leap in human traffic and hence pose an unacceptable danger to the fragility of the SAC. The laneway is an integral part of the SAC and not something that is separable from it. The very process of building over the existing route though will create the risk of importing alien species onto the SAC. Indeed, it will split the SAC in two.
Are we really serious about our biodiversity? We suggest that if we are – and we have no doubts as to the sincerity of Noonan – then this charade of commissioning studies to deflect obvious criticism should be stopped. In short, the time is now for a complete moratorium in Ireland on developing SACs.
The long-standing “precautionary principle”, we suggest, should be informed by the biodiversity emergency the Government itself has declared. Narrowing down the possibility for developing over a SAC would fit with the spirit of EU biodiversity strategy.
It would take seriously the declaration of a biodiversity emergency in Ireland and would be consistent with the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly. The proposed development over SAC 000606 in Ballinderreen is a test of sorts. It should never have proceeded this far and the Government should find a way of deterring Galway County Council (and other planning authorities around the country in similar circumstances) from allowing this sham development override our children’s future.
Gerard Quinn is emeritus professor of law and Jessica Donnelly is a clinical law student at the University of Galway