Climate Crisis

The lessons from where turf extraction has ended

The more we learn about bogs the more their wonders as climate and biodiversity powerhouses becomes apparent

Part of the rejuvenated bog at Cloncrow Bog at Tyrrellspass in Co Westmeath. Photograph: Alan Betson

Pádraic Fogarty
Thu Apr 4 2024 - 06:00

It’s nearly three decades since the Irish government transposed the European Union habitats directive into Irish law and, in doing so, committed to creating special areas of conservation (SACs) for the protection of our rarest and most important habitat types. Among these are raised bogs, unique ecosystems which are found mostly in midland counties.

Centuries of exploitation, including industrial extraction for most of the second half of the 1900s, has left only a tiny fraction – 0.6 per cent at last count – of the original area intact. The implementation of the habitats directive was to have seen an immediate end to turf extraction on the 53 SACs that were then designated. However, this didn’t happen and it was only when the Green Party’s John Gormley became minister for the environment in 2007 that any serious effort was made to enforce the law.

It was controversial, to say the least, but the publication of a national peatlands strategy, along with a compensation scheme for those affected, was to have brought the matter to a close. Many people accepted the new dispensation while communities embarked on a new relationship with their local bog, one of restoration and stewardship (usually with EU or central government funding), and many, including the EU itself, thought that the page had finally turned on what was a rancorous and unpleasant episode.

However, the issue did not, in fact, end there. Turf extraction did not stop on many of the SACs and continues to this day. Information received under freedom-of-information legislation shows that in 2023 turf extraction was undertaken at 14 SACs, nearly a quarter of all sites. This includes protected bogs at Monivea and Cloonmoylan in Co Galway, Cloonchambers in Co Roscommon and Mouds Bog in Co Kildare where mechanical excavators are illegally mining the peat to be sold for fuel.

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These figures will not come as a surprise to the authorities, who have been monitoring the activity on SACs all this time while having first threatened legal proceedings in 2011, the European Commission decided, finally, to refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice in March 2024.

The more we learn about bogs the more their wonders as climate and biodiversity powerhouses becomes apparent. The raised bog SACs represent what’s left of a unique heritage dating back to the retreat of the glaciers and, once damaged from drainage or peat extraction, cannot be fully restored.

Why is this harm allowed to continue? What will it take to bring it to an end? Given that peat needs to stay in the ground everywhere, not just in SACs, if we are to meet our climate and biodiversity goals, what lessons can we draw from those areas where turf extraction did end?

One area that has shown the way is Scohaboy Bog in Co Tipperary. Gearóid Ó Foighil is a director of the Cloughjordan Community Development Association, which acts as the voice of the community in the restoration programme for this raised-bog SAC. The project is also a member of the Community Wetlands Forum, a volunteer-led group of now more than 60 communities across Ireland that are dedicated to bog protection.

Today Scohaboy, once associated with burning and turf extraction, is now wholly dedicated to conservation, something that was achieved without conflict

On a wet day in February, Ó Foighil leads me across the boardwalk that has become a popular amenity for local people. The bog face, which was once a place of machines, trucks and bare peat, is now submerged following rewetting works. “This place was busy in the summer taking turf off the bog, now it’s a diverse wetland providing new habitat and preventing the loss of CO2″ he says.

Beginning in 2013, this award-winning restoration programme has seen three major works phases involving the National Parks and Wildlife Service, Coillte (the State forester), 50 private landowners and the local community. Today 90 per cent of Scohaboy’s more than 600 hectares is under nature conservation management. There is no turf extraction.

“People are very proud of what has been achieved”, says Ó Foighil. “In the beginning there was some tension at the prospect of ending turf removal, but we approached the restoration as a kind of oral history project with Cloughjordan Heritage Group. This got people talking and relationships developed. People could tell their stories, share their memories of the bog. Letters in the post do not necessarily change people’s behaviour, an essential element is face-to-fact contact, getting to know people.”

He believes there was a sense of peer influence that helped to bring people around. Today Scohaboy, once associated with burning and turf extraction, is now wholly dedicated to conservation, something that was achieved without conflict.

Kate Flood is a member of the Community Wetlands Forum steering committee and a researcher who recently completed a PhD looking at the cultural and social values of peatlands. She believes that recognising these values, in addition to the bogs’ biodiversity and other environmental values, is critical.

“So many people have memories of cutting turf on the bog as a child. For some it was a place of work, for others a place of play. In terms of conservation, we have missed a trick in overlooking the attachment people have to the bog. That sense of community, of coming together. In bogs where conservation is now the focus, people are getting together to remove invasive species, they’re bringing cups of tea. The reasons today are different but the old values are being brought forward.

“The thing about tradition is there’s a huge inertia about it, by definition you don’t want it to change. The cultural stuff, the oral history, is about remembering something that had meaning and value to people. Letting go of the past is difficult. Art and literature and telling stories bring communities together and help us come to terms with change.”

Flood believes Ireland’s community spirit is unique and that solutions will differ from place to place but part of the answer is to give communities more influence over land uses that affect them. When protests erupted a decade ago about bog protection, she notes, there was very little regard for community participation and the creation of the Community Wetlands Forum was a bottom-up response to that. Simple things such as boardwalks provide access to people and make them feel a part of conservation efforts, as opposed to apart from them.

[ Loving our Irish bogs: ‘Once you conserve the habitat, the biodiversity will right itself’ ]

Sending the gardaí to block off bogs, as was done in the early 2010s, created a high-tension point of conflict that neither politicians nor communities are eager to see repeated. Yet allowing illegal activity to continue under the noses of authorities is not a tenable position either. The State could, as it has done in the past, get creative in targeting individuals, the activity of turf extraction itself or the financial proceeds that derive from it. The fact that the European Commission is taking action should provide little comfort to conservationists, the body is too slow to act while politicians are not afraid of the repercussions of negative rulings from the European Court of Justice.

Meanwhile the positive effect of community action is not being adequately harnessed. Financing to communities, while it has seen a welcome increase in recent years, remains small compared with that given to State bodies. Groups such as the Community Wetlands Forum need much more funding if they are to hire staff that can deliver the supports on the ground.

Too much is still being placed on the shoulders of volunteers. When it comes to ending turf extraction on SACs Flood says: “We have to change, we are in crisis. It is tough for everybody, really tough choices have to be made sometimes. And that might mean much better enforcement of the law, but that can’t be on its own, it has to come with better communication, outreach and understanding.”

Like so many of our environmental and social issues, inaction by the State has created a vacuum that is filled with fear, uncertainty, pollution and extinction. Ending peat extraction was never going to be an easy task, but it has been made a lot harder by a failure to fully engage with and empower, the people it affects most.

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