Ireland will have to halve pesticide use and restore 20% of its land and sea for nature by 2030, if pioneering new EU proposals are passed.
Birdwatch Ireland has welcomed the first of its kind Nature Restoration Law which they say will ‘transform Ireland’s degraded ecosystems’ and help tackle climate breakdown. The pioneering ‘green deal’, proposed yesterday [Wednesday] by the European Commission, is intended to “restore damaged ecosystems and bring nature back across Europe”.
Ireland currently has 913 protected areas, 13.83% on land and 2.25% in the sea, while 135 species and 60 habitats are protected under EU law. But according to a 2019 report on the Status of our EU Protected Habitats and Species 85% of those habitats are in poor or bad condition.
