EU Biodiversity strategy 2030

HillFarmer

Interesting video here if you have a spare 15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3-TsRRSys&feature=emb_title

Not sure how they weren't making money on a farm that size before changing over.
I think its well worth a watch.

gozunda

Capercaillie wrote: »

True rewilding introduces large predators or ar least culling as a proxy. That Dutch model is not a good example.

Considering the howls of outrage made about culling deer etc that ain't going to happen.

As for Mr Ryan's Wolves don't get me started ...

Birdnuts

Water John wrote: »

Land can provide the three things, produce for sale and human beings to eat, biodiversity and carbon sequestration. Only a managed land can maximise all three. Rewilding offers little or no opportunity to reduce GHG.

I suppose it depends on a number of factors including soil, climate type and whether the land was "traditionally" farmed. Your point is obviously valid on this island, but in the likes of Brazil and Indonesia, reversing the damage done in the past few decades from the likes of ranching and palm oil plantations by restoring rainforest cover can only be a good thing for the climate and biodiversity. As it is there are already NGO's in Borneo doing great work on restoring forest cover on degraded former palm oil plantations. Some have even managed to release endangered species like Orangutans into these areas which were originally rescued from the illegal wildlife trade

Capercaillie

HillFarmer wrote: »

Interesting video here if you have a spare 15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3-TsRRSys&feature=emb_title

Not sure how they weren't making money on a farm that size before changing over.
I think its well worth a watch.

It was a tillage farm on wet ground that only managed to make a profit on occasional years. They make a profit now!

Capercaillie

gozunda wrote: »

Considering the howls of outrage made about culling deer etc that ain't going to happen.

As for Mr Ryan's Wolves don't get me started ...

Proponents of rewilding don't want deer culling?

TheBoyConor

I think the knepp project is fantastic.
It shows how real nature can be facilitated and allowed to thrive with minimaln intervention .

Its different from what that vet in mayo was doing by intensively cultivating a habitat for corn crake. That's all fine and good but it's a different type of conservation effort targeted at a particular species, as is talked about in the knepp video.

And the clincher is this,.....Knepp is making far more money now than it ever did as a farm.
I hope a lot of Irish farms follow the knepp protocol.

Its definitely the sort of theme which I intend to

Dinzee Conlee

HillFarmer wrote: »

Interesting video here if you have a spare 15 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mP3-TsRRSys&feature=emb_title

Not sure how they weren't making money on a farm that size before changing over.
I think its well worth a watch.

Very interesting...

I wonder what the minimum size farm you’d need for this to properly work?
I think they said they had 200/300 acres in Knepp?

I guess this is what the new CAP had in mind with fallow areas? But I suspect any payments for fallow areas would have a small enough upper limit...

Capercaillie

TheBoyConor wrote: »

I think the knepp project is fantastic.
It shows how real nature can be facilitated and allowed to thrive with minimaln intervention .

Its different from what that vet in mayo was doing by intensively cultivating a habitat for corn crake. That's all fine and good but it's a different type of conservation effort targeted at a particular species, as is talked about in the knepp video.

And the clincher is this,.....Knepp is making far more money now than it ever did as a farm.
I hope a lot of Irish farms follow the knepp protocol.

Its definitely the sort of theme which I intend to

The lad in Mayo isn't just managing the land for corncrake, its protecting an entire ecosystem.

gozunda

Capercaillie wrote: »

Proponents of rewilding don't want deer culling?

Yup. A lot of the pro rewilding brigade are anti hunting / culling They see a haven where all the little bunnies and bambies frolicking free living in harmony in forests where they can go for nice walks with none of that nasty farming ...

TheBoyConor

That is another think I have objections about. If an area is to be rewilded, then it should be just that....not a theme park for people to walk through letting their children run riot and letting dogs loose or dropping litter everywhere.
It should be off limits to the public, enforced by a physical barrier. Only people in there should be those who are overseeing it and taking care of whatever minimal interventions are necessary, eg, removing invasive non native species, culling of fauna in order to fill the gap left by the absence of large predators.

cosatron

Capercaillie wrote: »

The lad in Mayo isn't just managing the land for corncrake, its protecting an entire ecosystem.

Do you know that lad lol

Capercaillie

cosatron wrote: »

Do you know that lad lol

Of course I know him:P

Capercaillie

gozunda wrote: »

Yup. See a whole bunch green party type advocates for details. A lot of the rewilding brigade are anti hunting / culling They see a haven where all the little bunnies and bambies frolicking free living in harmony in forests where they can go for nice walks with none of that nasty farming ...

Rewilding groups advocate heavy culling of deer to promote native woodland regeneration.....

Knepp is business that was started by the owners own decisions. It wasn't something that they didn't want which was forced on them.

gozunda

Capercaillie wrote: »

Rewilding groups advocate heavy culling of deer to promote native woodland regeneration.....

There are. However there are a whole range of groups who are strongly pro rewilding but remain vehemently against any form of culling.

The Oostvaardersplassen rewilding reserve is a case in point. When it was decided to initiate a cull - animal rights campaigners started massive protests - with rangers and ecologists receiving death threats.

In the UK  Culling is a controversial method of population control and is opposed by a large number of animal rights extremists including parts of Scotland where rewilding initiatives have taken place.

Although not a rewilded area - It was noticeable that the The Phoenix Park deer culling debacle here was highly as contentious as was the culling of dear populations in the Killarney National Park.

Water John

The Knepp project is quite interesting. What is important I think, is a whole suite of options and levels. Each farm pitches to maximise both the land and the farmer, aiming to produce all three; produce, biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
Looks like an acre can sequester about 4t carbon/year. If someone at the end of this decade will pay me €80/100 per tonne, I'll farm what ever achieves that.

Capercaillie

gozunda wrote: »

There are. However there are a whole range of groups who are strongly pro rewilding but remain vehemently against any form of culling.

The Oostvaardersplassen rewilding reserve is a case in point. When it was decided to initiate a cull - animal rights campaigners started massive protests - with rangers and ecologists receiving death threats.

In the UK  Culling is a controversial method of population control and is opposed by a large number of animal rights extremists including parts of Scotland where rewilding initiatives have taken place.

Although not a rewilded area - It was noticeable that the The Phoenix Park deer culling debacle here was highly as contentious as was the culling of dear populations in the Killarney National Park.

Your confusing animal rights groups with rewilding groups. There were objections to culling of red deer in Killarney from environmental groups because of the low numbers of red, not the culling of sika.

As you said Phoenix park is not even remotely a rewilded area, so not sure why you are bringing that up as an example.

The Dutch site is an outlier among rewilding proponents.

gozunda

Capercaillie wrote: »

Your confusing animal rights groups with rewilding groups. There were objections to culling of red deer in Killarney from environmental groups because of the low numbers of red, not the culling of sika.
As you said Phoenix park is not even remotely a rewilded area, so not sure why you are bringing that up as an example.The Dutch site is an outlier among rewilding proponents.

Nope. And yes I'm aware there are dedicated "rewilding groups"

Not sure what the counter argument is about tbh.

You asked

Capercaillie wrote: »

Proponents of rewilding don't want deer culling?

so let me explain again - apart from 'dedicated' rewilding groups there are many proponents / advocates of rewilding who are strongly anti culling. These include many extreme animal rights groups who support rewilding.

And no the killarney anti culling example was when both species of deer were being culled due to overpopulation

I brought those two example for the reason that there is a strong anti culling lobby whether that is in national parks or anywhere else. Ditto the Dutch rewilding park where they tried to bring in culling. Ditto Scotland.

'Dedicated' rewilding groups are going to face some issues with this down the line.

yosemitesam1

TheBoyConor wrote: »

I can't get my head around the need for everything to be managed. Nature is the absence of human intervention and interference.
My approach would be to plant a week planned mix of trees, shrubs and undergrowth and close the gate behind me. Only exceptional intervention after that would be keeping and eye out for invasive non native species and removing them.

An awful lot of biodiversity is reliant on disturbance to habitats. People have provided that disturbance for >10,000 years. Whether through burning, coppiceing, hedge laying, managed grazing/cutting, cultivation (pre chemical era) etc.
There are also natural factors that keep the worlds great natural grasslands healthy from a diversity pov in the abscence of human intervention.
But in Europe, many species are actually dependent of people and would not be here without us. As great as old growth forests are, if the whole island was composed of them many species would become extinct and biodiversity would suffer.
Disturbance (especially if it is actively managed) creates the conditions that many species need to survive. Most traditional farming systems across the world provided this disturbance as a byproduct of producing food.

With good hedge management, sympathetic grazing/cutting management and creating other small areas of habitat (whether thats a small woodland, constructed wetland etc, that can provide other non habitat benefits to the owner). It would be possible to generate far better outcomes for nature than saying x amount of land is to be abandoned and allow the rest of the land to make up for any output reductions as a result

Waffletraktor

Dinzee Conlee wrote: »

Very interesting...

I wonder what the minimum size farm you’d need for this to properly work?
I think they said they had 200/300 acres in Knepp?

I guess this is what the new CAP had in mind with fallow areas? But I suspect any payments for fallow areas would have a small enough upper limit...

Knepp is 3,500 acres iirc, typical old money estate slowly going broke.

Water John

This proposed legislation in NI, an Environment and Nature Restoration Bill is worth keeping an eye on:
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/rspb-new-bill-could-turn-the-tide-on-nis-devastating-nature-decline/

Water John

Water John wrote: »

The Knepp project is quite interesting. What is important I think, is a whole suite of options and levels. Each farm pitches to maximise both the land and the farmer, aiming to produce all three; produce, biodiversity and carbon sequestration.
Looks like an acre can sequester about 4t carbon/year. If someone at the end of this decade will pay me €80/100 per tonne, I'll farm what ever achieves that.

I know two knowledgeable people who visited Knepp, with a view to incorporating it into a training program. They didn't. When I asked why, they said the amount of bare soil there was astounding, that it could be much improved with the proper grazing of livestock. So while it may have it's pluses in some senses, I wouldn't put it on a pedestal for all things.

Water John

Yeah, mob grazing would look like a natural fit. There is no natural predator there to move the cows.

Water John

Water John wrote: »

Yeah, mob grazing would look like a natural fit. There is no natural predator there to move the cows.

That's the rub, electric fencing would look too farmerish to suit the business model, and what would the animal rights crow say to virtual fencing collars. Perhaps they could employ some of the peasants that lost their tenancies to facilitate Knepp Safari as herders.

Bare soil is a very bad thing for many reasons.

Birdnuts

Water John wrote: »

This proposed legislation in NI, an Environment and Nature Restoration Bill is worth keeping an eye on:
https://www.agriland.ie/farming-news/rspb-new-bill-could-turn-the-tide-on-nis-devastating-nature-decline/

Good to see - but an awfull lot of work to do given that NI's record in this area is even worse than ours eg. the Environmental agency there reported last year that only one out of 50 lakes surveyed was of "good" status:(

Paywall but sure...

The most impactfull line in it IMO

“In reality the designations effectively prevent farmers from diversifying and evolving, which all farmers must do in order to ensure farm viability.”

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/forestry-enviro/environment/full-planning-permission-for-fencing-drainage-and-digger-work-on-selected-lands-by-2030-40206494.html

An important contribution from Michael Fitzmaurice. People farming, or even coming from, areas described need to pay attention.

https://www.facebook.com/videoparliamentireland/videos/4140163369361357

eire23

Deleted User wrote: »

An important contribution from Michael Fitzmaurice. People farming, or even coming from, areas described need to pay attention.

https://www.facebook.com/videoparliamentireland/videos/4140163369361357

That does not make for good listening... People haven't a clue I'd imagine.

eire23

eire23 wrote: »

That does not make for good listening... People haven't a clue I'd imagine.

No, and that's a worry. The ostrich strategy won't make this go away. Lads that might believe sure that's only for the hills are in for a rough ride.

Say my name

Haven't watched the piece above.

But from soundbites and noises. It sounds like the powers that be..teagasc, the government and environmentalists have all gotten together and decided that farming is to be curtailed massively on land that they decide has a good store of carbon.
The farmer is secondary or way down that list.

Eventually they hope by the next generation of people that that generation will be curtailed from building and farming there and they move to a town or village and the land will be left be.

It's Scottish clearance by "soft talk".