There will be safeguards built into Ireland’s nature restoration plan for farmers who do not wish to rewet their land but might have a neighbour who does, a senior Department of Agriculture official has said.

Senior inspector Michael Maloney said that the impact of rewetting one parcel of land on a neighbouring farmer’s land has yet to be worked out.

“There will be safeguards for someone who says ‘no, the Nature Restoration Law is not for me’ but Johnny next door is interested. That has to be teased out.

“The Department welcomes proposals from farm organisations on it,” he said.

Rewetting is not flooding the land, Maloney said.

“It’s not turning land into a rice paddy, it’s not flooding. It doesn’t affect your BISS, CRISS etc. It’s bringing the water level to within a foot of the surface,” he told farmers at a meeting on land designations and GAEC 2 in Flagmount, Co Clare last Wednesday night.

Rewetting payments

On how much farmers would be paid to rewet land, the Department official said the “hurling still has to take place in relation to all that”.

He said that if farmers rewet their land, under the law, their CAP payments “will not be impacted”.

“You’re not going to turn the place into a lake. These actions don’t mean that you stop farming,” he said, but that farmers would be farming at a reduced intensity.

He added that a suite of options is being explored by the Department of Agriculture with possible learnings being taken from the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).

One farmer at the meeting asked National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) officials when the current land designations, such as the Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) designation, would come to an end.

“It is a land grab. Land was grabbed from the farmers. We weren’t asked were we with happy with it,” he said.

NPWS officials on the night stated that the land was designated by statutory instrument and that the land is designated by law. They said there is no sign of the land ever being “de-designated”.

In response, the farmer said that he is “getting nothing” for his land.

“Either take it out of it (the designation) or compensate us for the land,” he said.

Councillor Pat Hayes warned the meeting that the fact that farmers are not compensated for designated land means people will not stay on the land.