Minister of State for heritage Malcolm Noonan has announced plans to enhance Ireland’s ability to implement biodiversity actions by putting the biodiversity action plan on a statutory footing.

Minster Noonan announced these intentions on Thursday 15 December at the the UN Biodiversity Conference COP15 in Montreal, Canada.

In doing this, he also hopes to introduce stronger biodiversity responsibilities for public bodies.

A memorandum, he said, will be brought to cabinet shortly seeking to restore the wildlife bill 2016 to the Dáil order paper.

Amendments

The bill had completed all stages in the Dáil and the Seanad and had been returned to the Dáil for consideration of the various amendments made by the Seanad, when the bill lapsed with the dissolution of the 32nd Dáil in January 2020.

This bill, Noonan said, underpins the National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBAP) in legislation and, once ratified, will require public bodies to submit regular reports to the minister, which will outline the measures they are undertaking to relevant biodiversity plans, programmes or strategies, such as the NBAP.

Minister Noonan said: “Putting the National Biodiversity Action Plan on a statutory footing and strengthening the biodiversity responsibilities of public bodies are long-held ambitions of mine.

"These proposals will significantly enhance Ireland’s ability to implement biodiversity action across the country. This couldn’t come at a more crucial time."

Ambitions

As 196 nations come together to agree on a new set of global ambitions, what really matters, Minister Noonan said, is what happens on the ground. That’s what these new legislative measures are focusing on, he said.

He claims that the proposed wildlife bill 2016 would also give legal effect to the proposed reconfiguration of the raised bog natural heritage area network arising from the 2014 review undertaken by NPWS and provides for a review or reviews of blanket bog natural heritage areas.

“This reconfiguration of the network of nationally protected raised bogs will help achieve national conservation objectives for this important habitat, which can have enormous value for biodiversity, as well as carbon sequestration and storage, water purification and flood mitigation,” concluded Minister Noonan.