Friends' Work

// Peat Bog Extraction appeal

The long struggle to bring Irish environmental protection into line with EU law is nowhere more clear than in FIE's campaign to have currently unlicensed industrial peat extraction subject to assessment.

The Government has set the bar for requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment to be if activities "pose a significant threat to the conservation objectives" of a site. The correct legal test is if it "cannot be excluded, on the basis of objective information, that the activities will have a significant effect on that site, either individually or in combination with other plans or projects".

This key point is nowhere outlined better than in this submission to the EPA over the licensing of Westland's industrial extraction of peat in County Westmeath.

Read the Submission | Read FIE's Infringement Complaint to the EU about industrial peat extraction