Eamon Ryan rules out compulsory purchase of peatlands to meet rewetting targets

By Gráinne Ní Aodha, PA

Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan has said the government will not be using compulsory purchase orders to buy peatlands from farmers in order to “rewet” them.

It comes after Irish Farmers’ Association president Tim Cullinan said Mr Ryan’s failure to rule out the move earlier in the week had caused “huge anger”.

“Minister Ryan’s failure to rule out the use of compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) as a means of achieving the targets in the proposed EU law has confirmed farmers’ fears that the minister actually wants to confiscate their land under the cover of the proposed law,” Mr Cullinan had said.

Mr Ryan responded to this by saying it was “completely wrong”.

There has been a disagreement within the Government over the EU Nature Restoration Law proposal, which looks at rewetting peatland areas to store carbon and help meet countries’ reduced-emissions targets.

Fears have been expressed from the agricultural sector and in the Dáil about the extent of the targets and what it would mean for Irish farmers – though Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien said there had been “scaremongering” over the EU law.

On Tuesday, Ireland voiced its support for the revised version of the draft law at a meeting of the EU Council in Luxembourg.

Among the revisions was a definition of “rewetting” that allows each country to determine for itself how best to achieve the targets.

The European Commission said the law is a key element of the EU Biodiversity Strategy, which calls for binding targets to restore degraded ecosystems, in particular those with the most potential to capture and store carbon and to prevent and reduce the impact of natural disasters.

Asked on Newstalk Breakfast on Wednesday whether the proposals would mean compulsorily purchasing land from farmers under the nature restoration law, Mr Ryan said: “Completely wrong, completely wrong.

“What we’re looking at is paying farmers for delivering the nature-based solutions we will need to restore nature, to provide food, to store carbon, and that’s going to be good for a whole generation of young people (who) we need to go into forestry and farming and protecting nature.

“Yes, we will have to pay for that to happen or it wouldn’t happen. It won’t be forced, it will be voluntary.”

He added: “We’re not going to be CPO-ing.”