Earlier this week I stood on Murvey Beach in southwest Connemara, between Roundstone and Ballyconneely. The scene was fresh: blue skies, wispy white clouds, green grasslands, and, on a section of the beach, 42 piles of seaweed sourced nearby and carted on to the beach, being spread by local farmers across the sand. Within about 10 minutes, the brown piles became a carpet of seaweed covering the sand.
Murvey has something rare: Ireland is the only country in the European Union with machair habitat. This coastal grassland formed over thousands of years from a unique combination of geology, weather and people. The sands are rich in shell fragments and calcareous seaweeds, which makes the machair soil lime-rich. Strong westerly winds pushed this sand inland, behind the shore, flattening it out across a mix of wet and dry ground.
All of this creates conditions ideal for herb-rich grasslands and flowers. In the late spring and summer, the few remaining machair sites in Ireland dazzle with colour from plants such as harebell, ox-eye daisy and marsh orchids, and attract insects such as the rare great yellow bumblebee, as well as the northern colletes bee, and breeding waders such as lapwing, redshank and dunlin – all under immense pressure elsewhere.
Why should we care about restoring the machair? If it disappears here, it disappears from the EU. We’re legally obliged to do it. An EPA-funded study published in September found that natural habitats such as machair and salt marsh could potentially reduce exposure to storms along 38 per cent of Ireland’s coast, but only if those habitats are in good condition. Most are not.
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Murvey, about 43 hectares, is a severely degraded machair site. Overgrazing by sheep and rabbits has reduced the habitat’s resilience and left it more vulnerable to extreme storms. In 2013 a storm hit Murvey Beach, and significant parts of the machair disappeared, leaving depressions of exposed sand. To restore the machair, seaweed is being spread on sand slumps, in the hope it will add organic matter and nutrients, hold the surface against the wind, and give new vegetation a chance to establish.
It’s part of a €7.4 million EU-funded nature restoration project that’s trying to protect the remaining machair along Ireland’s northwest coast, on nine sites from Connemara to Donegal. The project ends in 2028. Murvey’s recovery, like the rest of Ireland’s legal obligation to restore nature, cannot run on a six-year EU grant, which brings us to next week’s budget.
On October 6th, Simon Harris and Jack Chambers will stand up in the Dáil and share out €8.5 billion. We know the shape of it – cost of living, energy bills, childcare. Funding nature restoration looks like an easy line to leave blank. That would be an expensive mistake.
Where are we with nature? Nine in 10 protected habitats are failing. More than half are getting worse. These are our rivers, bogs and meadows, our woodlands and seas – the landscapes we see on Fáilte Ireland posters selling the country as natural and healthy. The Instagram post and the data tell completely different stories.
[ Public to be asked for input as first Nature Restoration Plan takes shapeOpens in new window ]
We have a deadline. Under the EU Nature Restoration Law, we have agreed to have restoration measures in place on 30 per cent of degraded habitats by 2030 – just four years away – rising to 60 per cent by 2040 and 90 per cent by 2050. That leaves four budget cycles before the first target in 2030 is due. A bog, river or machair site cannot recover in a single budget cycle – stop-start funding is a waste of public money.
This isn’t a luxury only for those who like rare plants or golden eagles in the sky. Degraded peatlands leak carbon that counts against our climate targets. Polluted and drained rivers worsen flooding and make water treatment more expensive. Nature restoration is often the lowest-cost way to tackle problems the State is paying to fix. Healthy wetlands, rivers and coastal habitats can help buffer flooding, drought and storms.
Our first draft National Restoration Plan went to Brussels on September 1st. What is lacking is money, so as it stands, it’s little more than a long press release. The Independent Advisory Committee on nature restoration estimates the cost at €450 million-€700 million a year and economic modelling shows that restoration benefits are at least 10 times the cost. The State owns about a 10th of the country, including Bord na Móna bogs, Coillte forests and national parks. If we’re to lead on public land, only money will deliver it.
If we’re serious about restoration, Budget 2027 needs a named, multiannual budget line for restoration so farmers, fishers and local authorities know the money will be there year on year.
Farmers could be forgiven for not trusting the Government’s restoration promises. In 2007 the State designated six upland areas for the hen harrier, leaving 4,000 farmers with new restrictions on what they could do with their land. Farmers say they were promised compensation. A scheme opened but closed in 2010 after just 377 farmers joined. The areas were signed into law in 2012, with no financial package, and the plan to save the bird took more than a decade to publish. A results-based programme paid 1,600 farmers to improve the habitat, but the hen harrier’s long-running decline continues.
So when farmers hear “You’ll be paid for nature”, many will roll their eyes. The scepticism reflects a reality farmers feel: the State cannot be trusted with long-term, successful, well-funded restoration. Most farm lobby groups aren’t opposed to restoration outright; they just want the money, guaranteed.
The farmers who spread seaweed on Murvey are paid through a scheme that ends in 2028. The machair will still need them in 2029.
