EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 5: Land and Soil The EU 2020 LANDMARK project 19 considered local, regional and EU-scale aspects of soils and land cover. Pillar 1 (local) developed a Soil Navigator 20 as a decision support tool for use at local scales by famers and advisors. It aims to assess and optimise soil functions in an integrated manner to inform long-term sustainability. Teagasc recommends that further research is carried out to refine this for use with Irish conditions and management regimes. At the regional scale (Pillar 2), a monitoring scheme covering the many functions of soils, coupled with a set of indicators to describe soil functions, has been developed. This could support the development of a national-level monitoring scheme for soils in Ireland. Finally, at the EU scale (Pillar 3), a set of policy options was proposed to optimise agronomic (using agricultural plants for food, fuel, fibre and land restoration) and associated environmental outcomes. Teagasc indicates that these policy options could be used and refined to inform national agricultural policy. More information is available at http://www.epa.ie/researchandeducation/research/. 6. Conclusions Soils and Land Resources Our soils, land cover and landscape resources need to be protected, monitored and managed responsibly. This needs to happen in national policies right down to local management scale, covering cross-sector activities on farms, on forest plantations, on peatlands, and in urban and rural areas. We must fully implement existing environmental policies, planning frameworks and strategies, as well as sectoral commitments, to protect, maintain and enhance our remaining biodiversity and ecosystem resources, including peatlands, forests and wetlands. In preparing sectoral plans and programmes, detailed land cover mapping information should, where available, be taken into account. This should be supported with continued environmental monitoring and reporting. 19 http://landmark2020.eu 20 www.soilnavigator.eu Land Cover Mapping The national land cover mapping programme, once complete, will provide a detailed evidence base to allow better and more integrated decision-making across many sectors. We need to be able to monitor how well policies, plans and programmes are being implemented from an environmental standpoint. Developing and implementing a new national approach to land cover, land use and land management would allow us to coordinate how major environmental challenges, such as addressing climate change mitigation and the decline in nature, and improving water quality in our catchments, are being addressed across different sectors. Protecting Peatlands Our peatlands are a unique and important habitat, rich in historical, cultural and community significance. Although our peatlands have served our fuel and power needs, especially in the past, we need to continue the transition to using cleaner, more renewable sources of fuel. Nationally, there needs to be a concerted effort to fully implement the commitments of the National Peatlands Strategy and the National Raised Bog SAC Management Plan 2017-2022 (DCHG, 2018). Rewetting degraded peatlands will help eliminate and reduce losses of carbon. Where peatland restoration is feasible, it will further improve the capacity of our peatlands to store CO 2. It will also help protect and, where possible, enhance important habitats and the many ecosystem services they provide us with. Where peat extraction activities are still ongoing within national and European designated sites, these should continue to be regulated. We need to continue to progress options to rehabilitate and restore existing industrial cutaway and cutover bogs, with the overall aim of better protection and timely restoration of peatlands as carbon sinks. 121