The Irish Uplands Forum (IUF) has said it is disappointed with the lack of any mention of upland landscapes and environments in the government’s Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan (CSP).
The group said that the “unique challenges and the variable opportunities” facing different upland areas are “well documented”.
“This research, we sell as the lived experiences of our membership…provides abundant evidence of the increasingly significant roles of uplands as water towers and purifiers; refuges of habitats and biodiversity; recreational spaces; and repositories of unique socio-cultural heritage,” the IUF said today (Tuesday, September 7).
The group released the statement to follow on from its submission to the consultation process for the CSP.
The IUF said it welcomed the specific, cross-cutting objectives, noting that “it will have a particularly strong emphasis on achievement of a higher level of climate and environment ambition”.
The group argued that the proposed linking of objectives under Pillar I and Pillar II “offers the potential for more integrated approaches to farming and rural development, providing opportunities to embark on new models of production that will support sustainability”.
The IUF also said that the draft CSP in its current form “conveys a sense of geographical uniformity about issues and challenges to be addressed”.
“The strategy needs to explicitly acknowledge the variety of rural areas with different potentials for food production, social cohesion and demographic survival, and for the protection and management of our biodiversity.”
The IUF is calling for mainstreaming a “farming for nature” ethos through agri-environment schemes.
“This model should be fully embedded as a constant across Ireland and the EU, offering enhanced biodiversity and more sustainable livelihoods to farmers and their families in marginal settings,” the group said.
“A spatially targeted approach to the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of these agri-environmental programmes is required. Planning to ensure greater continuity and the elimination of any time lags between the agri-environmental programmes must be assured,” the IUF argued.