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

Chapter 6: Nature Topic Box 6.1 Wetlands are in Danger and Need Better Protection Ireland’s wetlands are worth protecting, not only because of the biodiversity they support, but also because of the role they play in providing essential ecosystem services such as flood attenuation and improved water quality. To understand and protect these valuable natural, cultural and economic assets, it is vital that practitioners (planners, agricultural advisors, etc.) and the public (farmers, community groups, etc.) can recognise and classify them. This will allow for more accurate wetland classification in the national landcover mapping project, for example. Wetlands are particularly vulnerable to damaging activities such as drainage, infilling, turf cutting, nutrient enrichment, overgrazing, agricultural improvements, afforestation and the spread of invasive species. From 1990 to 2018 we lost 258,800 hectares of wetlands, an area greater than the size of County Roscommon (Coordination of Information on the Environment – CORINE – data; Chapter 5). The Irish Wetland Bird Survey (I-WeBS), which has been running for over 25 years, is coordinated by BirdWatch Ireland and funded by the NPWS. The survey results indicate that the number of waterbirds wintering in Ireland has declined by 15 per cent from 2011/2012 to 2015/2016. More alarming is the comparison over a longer time period, which shows that our wintering waterbirds have declined by almost 500,000 individuals (40%) since the mid-1990s (Burke et al. , 2018). The Irish Wetland Types – An Identification Guide and Field Survey Manual (IRWC, 2018) helps the non-specialist identify and record Irish wetland habitat types in the field. Published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in association with the Irish Ramsar Wetlands Committee (IRWC), it also helps to identify pressures on wetlands by using indicators of human-induced pressures, such as weirs or dams causing impoundment and alterations of the water table. The manual and associated field survey form can be accessed on the IRWC website. 5 Killaun bog © Tina Claffey. Irish Wetland Types An Identification Guide and Field Survey Manual IrishRamsar WetlandsCommittee Irish Wetland Types — An identification guide and field survey manual Birds Although 30 per cent of the populations of Ireland’s breeding bird species are stable or have increased, a fifth are in long-term decline and one, the corn bunting, became extinct here in the 1990s. The protection of bird species at EU level is provided for under the Birds Directive (2009/147/EC). Under Article 12 of this Directive, Member States are obliged to report on the progress made with implementation of the Directive. This requires reporting on aspects of the status of all regularly occurring bird species both within and outside protected areas. Ireland reported on trends in bird populations in 2019. 6 The short-term (12 year) and long- term (since the early 1980s) trends in Ireland’s breeding and wintering bird populations are illustrated in Figure 6.3. 5 http://irishwetlands.ie/index.php/resources/ 6 https://nature-art12.eionet.europa.eu/article12/ report?period=3&country=IE. 133