Nature Restoration Law: The case against

The European Union’s nature restoration law – which is intended to restore ecosystems and make the environment more resilient to climate change – is in peril after a vote on June 27th in the European Parliament’s environment committee was evenly split. It will go to a vote of all 705 MEPs in the parliament’s next plenary session on July 11th.

[ Nature Restoration Law: The case in favour ]

The vote by the European Parliament’s environment committee on June 27th which denied the proposed Nature Restoration Law (NRL) a majority was presented by those in favour of the law as a practically incomprehensible act of environmental vandalism.

It was entirely predictable that without any kind of workable balance between individual rights and State diktat, the politicians concerned baulked at introducing an incredibly radical and far-reaching law. This is a law that would have handed member states the legal means to order landowners to restore decisive portions of their property to the unproductive state in which decades-old maps had them classified. That this was the intent is not disputed – even by those in favour of the NRL.

The law would have enabled the Irish State to write to a farmer whose parents and grandparents had – through back-breaking physical labour – drained the last few vital acres that made a holding productive enough to support the family, and simply inform him or her that according to map records of 1975, or whenever, these acres had once been “marsh” and must be returned to that state forthwith. That’s a very serious matter, going to the heart of the State’s attitude to an individual’s property – as well as the future of the thousands of holdings made unviable at a stroke.

Sinn Féin was the shock absorber of Irish politics. It’s worn out

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If you could meet your dead parent again through virtual reality would you?

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I am ashamed of my paramilitary past. I won’t be writing about it again

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Sinn Féin is starting to look like the political establishment

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That’s not to say there aren’t any moments of dark humour to be derived from all this – not least the interventions of multinational food corporations in support of the NRL. The idea that these corporations care a jot about disappearing biodiversity is laugh-out-loud stuff. Their real attitude can be gauged by their relentless year-on-year decrease in the margins they allow farmer primary-producers. The coalition in favour of the NRL is unlikely but revealing; it sees some of the most coldly commercial corporations on the planet teamed up with assorted environmentalists. They have nothing in common except a determination to end traditional farming – the corporations in the hope of introducing synthetic “lap-to-lip” replacements, and the environmentalists out of ideology.

[ Ireland consistently in favour of nature restoration law, Eamon Ryan says ]

The comments by Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan complaining of “scaremongering” are similarly tenuous. The onus to explain how the proposed law would be put into effect in Ireland was on him and his colleagues. They were unable to come forward with a coherent account. ICMSA’s lack of confidence in the degree of proportion and prudence that was required was evidently shared by An Taoiseach, who also stated that the law went too far. Again, this is worth repeating: it is manifestly not up to farmers to cut through the obfuscation and vague “sure it’ll be grand” assurances. We are way past that at this stage. It’s up to Minister Ryan and the those supporting the law to work every conceivable situation through to a satisfactory answer – and to have those answers in advance of the law passing. After 70 years of dealing with Irish governments of every hue, farmers have learned that we must insist on more binding commitments than we once did.

One of the reasons we have reluctantly come to that position is the attitude displayed by Minister Ryan in regard to the Midlands’ Rewetting – currently under way and the biggest environmental infrastructure project in the history of the State. We never had a problem with the project; it is the State’s land to do with as they wish. But when we asked for the neighbouring farming communities to be guaranteed against collateral damage and loss of productivity, we were refused. The model of “consultation” here is not real; it’s performative and designed to deflect scrutiny and avoid real engagement.

Forget the Nature Restoration Law; what we actually need is a confidence restoration law.

Pat McCormack is president of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA)