Minister bans burning from today
BirdWatch Ireland welcomes the decision by Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Ms. Josepha Madigan, T.D. not to extend the open period for burning into March in 2019. This means that the period for legal burning in 2019 has closed as of February 28th. Any burning in the uplands which occurs after this date and until September 1st will be in breach of the Wildlife Act 1976 (as amended 2000).
The decision by the Minister not to grant an extension for burning is a responsible act considering the dry weather conditions experienced not only in the last week but in the previous months during the 6-month open period. The Minister and her predecessor referred to ‘adverse weather conditions’ as a condition for granting an extension and this clearly could not be supported by the evidence from Met Éireann.
BirdWatch Ireland calls on the Minister to take the time now to put in place a licensing system for burning activities in the uplands that guarantees protection for breeding birds and is compliant with the Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive as outlined in their submission to the public consultation on the draft burning regulations.
In 2016 BirdWatch Ireland submitted a formal complaint to the European Commission as a result of the State’s failure to protect upland breeding birds and EU protected habitats and sites from burning activities both within and outside of the closed period. The Commission is investigating this complaint.
It has been purported by several quarters that an extension to the open period for burning would stop the out-of-control fires which occur every year and those which occurred in Cork, Wicklow and Kerry this week, but BirdWatch Ireland does not support this. The extended period for burning in Northern Ireland has not stopped out-of-control fires there with over 2,231 fires occurring between January and May in 2017.
Out-of-control fires have also cost the exchequer millions of euro as the fire service is deployed to extinguish them. They can destroy carbon stores of blanket bog and wet heath further impacting climate change, destroy the habitats of nesting birds and other wildlife and impact on air quality of citizens of this state.
Sadly, the fact that the Minister has not granted an extension will not mean an end to the fires in the Spring of 2019. BirdWatch Ireland calls on the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to stringently apply cross compliance rules in relation to land eligibility.