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

Chapter 6: Nature Biodiversity Climate Change Adaptation Plan Adaptation choices can help protect biodiversity and ecosystem services from the impacts of a changing climate. Ireland’s Biodiversity Climate Change Sectoral Adaptation Plan (DCHG, 2019b) states that, by the end of the century, climate change is likely to become the most significant driver of biodiversity loss. The goal of the plan is to protect biodiversity from the impacts of climate change and to conserve and manage ecosystems so that they deliver services that increase the adaptive capacity of people and biodiversity. This is achieved by identifying adaptation options that will help to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services from the impacts of changing climate. Climate change has a major impact on nature through interaction with other pressures and is dealt with in more detail in Chapter 2. Sustainable Forestry Conserving and increasing native woodland will enhance forestry’s contribution to biodiversity protection. The European Investment Bank is investing in the forestry operations of the state-owned forestry company, Coillte, for the 2016-2020 period (EIB, 2017). This includes the replanting of existing forest stands and nurseries, as well as upgrading forest trails and infrastructure. In 2018 Coillte launched Bioclass, a tool for recording and reporting areas of biodiversity value on lands owned by Coillte. The tool will assist with the integrated planning and management of key biodiversity sites across Coillte’s 440,000-hectare estate. In 2019 Coillte also established a not-for-profit entity called Coillte Nature, which will focus on the environment and recreational forests. Coillte Nature aims to deliver new woodlands so that they can be areas for biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Measures in Ireland’s Forestry Programme 2014-2020 (DAFM, 2015) include increasing the amount of native woodland in Ireland through the Native Woodland Establishment Scheme and Native Woodland Conservation Scheme. Pollinators and bumblebees One-third of our bee species are threatened with extinction in Ireland. Pollinators are animals, such as bees, hoverflies, butterflies and moths, that transfer pollen from one plant to another while feeding, thereby enabling plant fertilisation and reproduction. In doing so, pollinators support a steady supply of healthy and economically valuable food for people and sustain entire ecosystems (Science for Environment Policy, 2020). According to the National Biodiversity Data Centre (NBDC), bee species in Ireland are threatened with extinction because we have drastically reduced the amount of food (flowers) and safe nesting sites in our landscapes. 24 While some bumblebee species can be a regular sight, other species are endangered, including the great yellow bumblebee which is in severe decline in Ireland. The All-Ireland Pollinator Plan led by the NBDC provides information about what people can do to help pollinator conservation (Stout et al. , 2019). The plan covers all types of habitats ranging from gardens, to schools, to road-side verges managed by local authorities, to farmland. The plan is about everybody playing their part to try ‘to create an Ireland where pollinators can survive and thrive’. It also advises how people can get involved in recording sightings to help track trends in the distribution and abundance of species. 24 https://pollinators.ie/ 147