Friends' Work

// Turf cutting: Councillor Flannigan on Prime Time

Letter of clarification: Councillor Flannigan on Prime Time

Sirs;-

Recent statements by Councillor and Mayor Luke ‘Ming' Flannigan on RTE's Prime Time may have left viewers with certain misunderstandings of the facts.

The loss of raised bogs to turf cutting has been expressed by recent scientific reports in three ways:

• In their 2006 paper, "Assessment of impacts of turf cutting on designated raised bogs", Valverde and his co-cuthors record that: ‘All domestic [turf] cutting is for fuel peat. This activity has been going on for centuries and is the main cause for the reduction in the original raised bog area [in Ireland] from 311,000ha to current area of around 18,000ha [a reduction of over 94%]. Most of this cutting was carried out by hand but now most cutting is mechanised and appears like a scaled down version of the commercial type.'

• Ireland's 2007 Article 17 report to the European Commission required under the Habitats Directive recorded a further decrease of 36% [thirty-six] in active raised bog extent from 1994-2005.

• Finally, on 14 May 2010, Ireland's 4th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity put it this way: ‘Raised bogs are most abundant in the lowlands of central and midwest Ireland. The habitat has been heavily exploited. It is estimated that there has been a 99% loss of the original area of actively growing raised bog, and one-third of the remaining 1% has been lost in the last 10 years.'

The Councillor and Mayor's suggestion that the Government had no baselines by which to measure the damage is clearly without any foundation - such records exist both through studies and through ordinance survey maps, which show that the tiny teeth-like intrusions of earlier this century and been obliterated as entire raised bogs have been consumed.

The TCCA [Turf Cutters and Contractors Association] claimed in their July 2009 submission to the Government-established ‘Working Group on the Cessation of turf cutting' that their members are responsible for cutting only a small proportion of ‘what they own'.

In fact, domestic turf cutting takes place at 117 of the 139 raised bogs designated for nature conservation, including state-owned designated bogs. At Clara Bog 71 such sites were found to be being actively cut on the part of bog in state ownership, in spite of warning notices having been erected.

Often the case is not the extent of the cutting, but the location, which can drain the core ‘ecotope' area of raised bogs and can results in collapses and the formation of lakes where pristine bog once flourished.

Cutting within 250 metres has been well established as damaging to the habitat, but even this does not take into account situations where layers under the bog may be affected which can lead to much more extensive drying out. This was the case at Clara Bog where the subsidence due to turf cutting was measured over 600m away from the face-bank.

The Councillor and Mayor's suggestion that in spite of cutting at the TCCA Chairman's Lissnageerah Bog, the bog had increased by 45.03% was particularly specious when added to his complaint that the state ‘has many years to carry out remedial works' and had not done so. It is because of remedial works at this bog that the area has increased.

Lisnageeragh was one of the bogs where a series of management measures were developed and then implemented under a recent EU funded LIFE project. In spite of this, the TCCA Chairman and his fellow turf cutters continued cutting, reports noting that while ‘Although peat cutting intensity has decreased in the last ten years it continues negatively affecting some sections of Active Raised Bog habitat. High bog drainage associated with peat cutting is also negatively influencing Active Raised Bog habitat.'

The Mayor and Councillor states that ‘if it was the case that cutting turf was going to irreparably damage the bogs, I would stop it - but the NPWS figures tell me that my bog has grown'.

‘My bog' - Cloonchambers - has again grown - by 10.63% - because of the very restoration work which this public representative claims has not been undertaken by the Government - in this case the European Union Cohesion funded Raised Bog Restoration Project, which ran from 1994-99

And ‘extent' is not the only measurement of the conservation status of the bogs. In spite of the Raised Bog Restoration Project, the Cloonchambers Active Raised Bog ‘habitat quality' has ‘slightly declined as the loss of central ecotope indicates' - even while its ‘extent' is unchanged.

And why? ‘The loss in central ecotope is related to the occurrence of peat cutting, which although it only occurs in a few locations on the site has taken place close to the central ecotope. Furthermore, a large high bog drain has been deepened close to this area and thus it is likely to have some sort of negative impact on the habitat.'

Countless scientific reports demonstrate that the extraction of turf is doing irreparably damage to Ireland's bogs. To suggest anything else relies on the very ‘distortion' of the facts the public representative denies he is practicing. Because of the detailed figures quoted on Prime Time - down to the second decimal point - there is no doubt that the Councillor and Mayor has at least read the reports from which both his distortions and this letter of clarification are drawn.

He must then know that what he and his fellow turf cutters are doing is ‘irreparably damaging' the last 2/3rds of the remaining 1% of Ireland's unique bogs. And if he knows this, is it not indeed ‘time now for us to change how we look at the bogs'?

Yours etc.

Tony Lowes,
Director, Friends of the Irish Environment, Kilcatherine, Eyeries, Co. Cork
027 74771 / 087 2176316