Sustainability has become the most important criterion for environmental policy in Ireland and in many other parts of the world. It is defined - in yesterday's comprehensive report on the condition of the environment in this State - as the accommodation of development within the capacity of the environment to support it without lasting damage or depletion. Looking at the detailed evidence presented, by the Environmental Protection Agency, there is no room for complacency that this cornerstone of policy is being sufficiently adhered to, despite real progress in a number of areas and much greater public awareness of the issues and dangers involved.
This is the second such report; in future they are to be presented at five year intervals, an important baseline framework and an indication of a growing, and welcome environmental consciousness. It highlights several major areas of concern which stretch across the range of economic and everyday activity. Agricultural pollution and degradation are identified as prime culprits. Significant changes in the last ten years include a doubling in sheep numbers, a near doubling in the amount of silage, a great increase in the use of nitrogenous fertilisers and a decline in the amount of tillage.
As a result there is a severe over grazing and stocking problem in many mountainous parts of the west of Ireland which has led to a drastic, perhaps an irreversible, deterioration in certain areas over an extraordinarily short period of time. Throughout the State the misuse of fertilisers has affected land quality and severely affected many lakes and rivers with eutrophication - the over enrichment of water. Slurry run offs, and the dumping of raw sewage, produce the same effects, which seriously damage Ireland's green reputation. In recent years these problems are being tackled in a more determined fashion by State and voluntary bodies, and belatedly by farmers' organisations, which are beginning to realise that their industry and produce must also be judged by the criterion of sustainability.
In the urban areas some of the most serious environmental hazards flow from the great increase in the numbers of motor vehicles. Air quality is directly affected by them. Another matter of grave environmental concern is the amount of unnecessary waste produced by our consumer society, which has yet to absorb properly the most elementary lessons of recycling. Environmental concerns are set to become much more urgent as landfill sites are filled up and have to be replaced.
The extraordinary environmental awareness of the younger generation, in sharp contrast to that of their parents, gives room for hope that more progress can be made in the next five years. Ireland is fortunate that in many areas there is a family memory of a more sustainable, although less developed, attitude towards the environment. It should be positively encouraged in a period when environmental values are becoming more and more relevant to economic livelihood.