The Irish Farmers' Association which this weekend imposed a ban on fisheries officers from the North Western Fisheries Board entering their lands, has demanded changes in the rules governing Special Areas of Conservation (SAC).
It called on the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, to reduce the SAC river margin areas by excluding land on the river banks.
Earlier this year the IFA banned Dúchas inspectors from lands in the midlands in a row over the designation of land as SAC along the Shannon river.
The chairman of its western committee, Mr Con Hickey, said Mr Cullen had recently designated 100,000 hectares of SAC river margin areas along many rivers and this was "completely over the top" with designation and consequent restrictions being applied unnecessarily to land.
"There is no need to designate land along the rivers as farmers are already either farming to good farming practice standards or alternatively are in REPS [Rural Environment Protection Schemes\]", he said.
The IFA said the minister was proposing to have 30-metre buffer zones along the river margins where he planned to impose severe farming restrictions.
"This will be resisted by farmers as such designations effectively sterilise land and leads to devaluation of its value", Mr Hickey said. He also criticised the Department of the Environment for announcing designations through the local press while at the same time not informing individual farmers of the designations.
"This must be addressed by the Minister particularly as he is imposing restrictions and interfering in the property rights of farmers and landowners," he said.
On Friday last IFA members picketed the offices of the North Western Fisheries Board claiming it was anti-farming.
The board had sought the names of farmers who had signed up to the Rural Environment Protection Scheme under which they are paid €6,000 a year for entering a contract to farm in an environmentally sensitive manner.
The IFA president, Mr John Dillon, said the board was not entitled to this information and said local farmers were very careful of the water quality in the area and spending large amounts of money on pollution control.
Environmentalists believe that rivers and streams in the Mayo and north Connacht areas should be fenced off from livestock to prevent pollution of the river waters and damage to the banks.