Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, and European Investment Bank (EIB) vice-president, Christian Kettel-Thomsen have formally agreed to strengthen cooperation for peatland restoration in Ireland.
The EIB is supporting National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) efforts to accelerate the restoration of peatlands across the country.
After the meeting, Minister O’Brien said: “Ireland is privileged as a country to hold some of the largest reserves of peatland habitat within Europe, covering over 20% of Ireland’s terrestrial territory.
“Significant progress is being made on peatlands restoration and rehabilitation in Ireland but the cooperation between the National Parks and Wildlife Service, as a strong voice for nature conservation, with the EIB can contribute to the scaling up of biodiversity and climate ambitions for peatlands on a national level.”
The EIB, the EU’s climate bank, is committed to supporting investment to improve resilience to a changing and more extreme climate.
Christian Kettel-Thomsen, EIB vice-president said: “Restoring degraded bogs is crucial to revitalising nature and improving resilience to a changing climate.
“Beautiful peat habitats across Ireland are vitally important for biodiversity and provide important carbon stores and sinks.”
The new cooperation brings together government and state-owned enterprises, the private sector and local actors under a coordinated strategy for planning and financing peatland rehabilitation.
It will address climate and biodiversity challenges, use the latest scientific methods and unlock creation of economic opportunities.
Peatland Finance Ireland
The Peatland Finance Ireland initiative aims align the carbon and biodiversity agenda with opportunities for communities and regional development.
The initiative is engaging the broadest possible range of stakeholders, including corporates. Corporates have a wide range of motivations, include net-zero-carbon strategies, securing supply chains and Environmental and Social Governance.
According to the Department of Housing, consultation with Irish industry has shown a strong appetite for projects that follow science-based targets and integrate multiple benefits, for climate, biodiversity and society.
The creation of the Peatland Finance Ireland initiative has built on support provided by NPWS in 2021 under the Natural Capital Finance Facility, a joint EC-EIB financial instrument for biodiversity and nature-based climate adaptation, leading to the creation of a PFI stakeholders group.
Intel peatland restoration scheme
Following the signature of the new agreement, Minister O’Brien and vice-president, Kettel-Thomsen, visited the blanket bog restoration project in the Wicklow Mountains National Park to see how Intel Corporation is investing in peat as part of global investment to enhance water storage.
The project will restore 60ha of previously drained bog, wetted to increase water storage levels in part of the River Liffey headwaters by an expected 50-90 million litres.
These headwaters supply the Poulaphouca (Blessington) reservoir, a drinking water source for the Greater Dublin Area. The bog restoration will also protect biodiversity, improve carbon storage, and is likely to improve water quality.
This is the first water restoration project funded in Europe as part of Intel’s commitment to achieve net positive water globally, by 2030. This public-private project collaboration is one of the first of its kind in Ireland for water restoration and the protection of biodiversity.
Restoration
Peatlands are said to be central to both Ireland’s future climate and biodiversity commitments.
Rehabilitating Ireland’s peatlands has the potential to reduce national carbon emissions by an order of 5-10% according to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.
It said that healthy peatlands are important for water security, and also help mitigate both droughts and flooding events, in addition to being biodiversity hotspots.
Scaling up peatland restoration within an accelerated timeframe will require significant upfront investment and deployment of skills for planning and execution and systemic stakeholder engagement.
Physical implementation will follow a phased approach, integrating the developing understanding of the complex peatlands, building a comprehensive set of standards and systems for monitoring and verification.