Heritage minister launches blanket bog restoration project in Wicklow

Minister for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan, has announced details of a blanket bog restoration project in the Wicklow Mountains National Park today, Thursday, May 20.

The public-private project collaboration is one of the first of its kind in Ireland.

The announcement, which was also attended by Intel Ireland general manager, Eamonn Sinnott, is taking place during National Biodiversity Week.

Blanket bog restoration project

The restoration project, taking place over the coming months, will see 60ha of drained bog rewetted to increase water storage levels in part of the River Liffey headwaters by an expected 50-90 million litres.

The headwaters supply the Poulaphouca (Blessington) reservoir, a drinking water source for the Greater Dublin Area.

The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) says that the bog restoration will also protect biodiversity, improve carbon storage, and is likely to improve water quality.

This is the first project funded in Europe as part of Intel’s 2030 RISE goal (responsible, inclusive, sustainable, and enabled) to achieve net positive water.

Blanket bog

There is an estimated 4,000ha of degraded blanket bog in the Wicklow Mountains National Park.

Degraded blanket bog is caused by a range of land use activities including drainage.

It is much more susceptible to damage from extreme weather events such as intense rainfall and extended periods of drought, which are projected to occur more frequently with climate change.

The first phase of this project will involve:

Baseline studies, including scoping surveys of potential sites for management in the WMNP and ecohydrological characterisation of selected pilot sites and restoration planning design;
Restoration works, principally rewetting the bog through drain blocking to raise the lowered water levels to enable recovery of main peat-forming species, especially the Sphagnum mosses;
Pre- and post-restoration monitoring to quantify project’s impact on vegetation, carbon storage, water levels and any improved water storage capacity in study sites.

‘Revitalising nature’

Welcoming the agreement, Minister Noonan said: “Restoring our degraded bogs is central to revitalising nature and improving resilience to climate change.

“These beautiful habitats are vitally important for a range of species and also provide important carbon stores and sinks.

“National Biodiversity Week is an appropriate time to welcome Intel’s support for the NPWS objective of protecting biodiversity in the Wicklow Mountains National Park,” he added.

“The biodiversity emergency demands an emergency response. We need all sectors of society to take science-led action for biodiversity, and this includes the private sector.

“Companies like Intel rely on natural resources like water and the eco-systems that provide those resources in order to manufacture their products.

“It’s vital that private sector organisations address the protection of the natural assets that they depend on, in the same way as other types of risk.”

Eamonn Sinnott, the general manager of Intel Ireland added: “The project not only provides an important opportunity to increase water storage levels, but also restores valuable eco-systems that are an integral part of our biodiverse landscapes.

“Water is essential to our manufacturing process. Over the last decades, our sustainable water management efforts here in Ireland have enabled us to conserve over 9 billion litres of water and return approximately 87% of our water back to our communities.

“Now, we are broadening our focus to achieve net positive water by 2030 through onsite conservation and restoring more than 100% of our water consumption,” he added.