Nature is in trouble – what kind of legacy do we want to leave? – Rosalind Skillen

The dwindling and depletion of the natural world has served as a constant drumbeat for most of our lives. With report after report telling us that the Irish environment is in trouble, the biodiversity emergency is observed not only in the science but perhaps best of all, within and across generations.

Speaking to people who have life-long associations with our seas and land has given me a fuller sense of the scale of biodiversity loss that has taken hold on this island in my lifetime.

Conversations paint a picture of a time when peatlands weren’t drained, waters weren’t polluted, and when our fields were more than brown parcels of land. I’ve listened to farmers describe meadows filled with bees and butterflies, Irish hedgerows comprised of hawthorn and blackthorn, and wildflowers bursting with colour and fragrance in summer. I’ve spoken to people, who use and rely on the sea for a living, describing a sea teeming with marine life. They talk about how water quality has changed so drastically that some of them are reluctant to even swim or have direct contact with seawater.

We can’t see what we’ve lost but we can try to get it back, and this is some of the thinking underpinning the Nature Restoration Law which was passed last Tuesday by the EU Parliament. One of the most important pieces of environmental legislation to come out of the EU since the Birds and Habitats Directives, it obliges member states to restore 20% of the EU’s land and sea by 2030, and all ecosystems by 2050.

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Both the UK and Irish governments declared a biodiversity emergency in 2019 but now, while Ireland turns its attention to drafting nature restoration plans to meet its targets, Northern Ireland doesn’t even have a strategy in place to address our own biodiversity emergency. NI cutting a lonely figure, once more.

It’s not like the north can afford to stand by and watch nature get destroyed. According to the 2023 national State of Nature report, Northern Ireland is one of the most nature-depleted areas in the world (read that again and let that sink in). The report found that 12% species assessed across Northern Ireland are under threat of extinction, that flowering plants had declined by 14% since 1970 and that farmland bird species had declined by 43% since 1996.

Shocking statistics, I know, but if you’re not a numbers person, then surely the thick green algal soup that is Lough Neagh paints enough of a picture? In short, nature in Northern Ireland is in trouble, and everything about it looks, feels, and smells wrong.

Back in 2021, work was underway by SLDP Upper Bann MLA Dolores Kelly in partnership with RSPB to bring forward new legislation that would restore the natural environment. Then the Assembly collapsed, and with it, any hopes for reversing biodiversity decline were dashed. With a new Executive up and running, there is now a fresh opportunity for a nature restoration strategy to be moved in this Assembly and any politician would be wise to take up this opportunity. After all, what better legacy than helping to build a greener, bluer Northern Ireland for future generations?

The overwhelming public support in favour of the Nature Restoration Law should also send strong signals to politicians. Over one million EU citizens signed the Restore Nature campaign, and notably, Ireland had the third highest uptake per capita in the EU.

According to the 2023 national State of Nature report, Northern Ireland is one of the most nature-depleted areas in the world (read that again and let that sink in)

There are many benefits to nature restoration: better water quality, air quality, food security as well as better protection from the impacts of climate change. Through sharing a land border with Ireland, the north will experience many of these benefits by proxy, unlike the rest of the UK. This should spur us on to revive our own ecosystems, and lock in these benefits for ourselves.

A nature restoration strategy is long overdue for Northern Ireland, and we can’t afford to kick the can down the road because wildlife in our land and seas is shrinking at an alarming rate. A future without nature means a future without food, without livelihoods, without diversity, without abundance.

To our politicians: is that the kind of legacy you want to leave?