28.01.10 - Water Shortages Highlight Role of Biodiversity
The ongoing problem of domestic water shortages in many parts of the country has made people painfully aware of our total dependence on clean water.
Cliona O’Brien, Heritage Council Wildlife Officer says that, "it is not just a matter of adequate rainfall and non-leaky pipes. People do not consider how biodiversity is affecting our water provision".
The simple and very unglamorous water lice and the threatened crayfish are just two of the species that clean and purify the water in our rivers, lakes and wetlands, whilst also absorbing the pollution in them. "We need to maintain these healthy populations of biodiversity in order to preserve our healthy water sources", added O’Brien.
The International Year of Biodiversity 2010 was launched last week amid calls from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN Environment Programme Executive Director Achim Steiner, for countries to do more to halt the loss of biodiversity.
Biodiversity, wildlife and our natural heritage are the bedrock on which the human community is based and on which we feed, drink, survive - or fail. It is our vital green infrastructure, providing us with food, water, medicine and shelter.
Recent efforts by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to quantify exactly how valuable biodiversity is to us in Ireland have conservatively estimated it at over €2.6 billion per annum.
In recent years, there has been increased investment in biodiversity research and monitoring programmes. Legislation to comply with our EU commitments has also been implemented e.g. the Water Framework Directive and we have seen the establishment of the National
Biodiversity Data Centre. Despite all that has been achieved, there is a lot more to do.
•We need a new National Biodiversity Action Plan that sets out a vision for protecting and managing our biodiversity across government
departments.
•We need to increase public awareness of the importance of biodiversity and how it serves the populations’ needs by providing clean water, fibre for clothes and bees for pollinating our food.
•We need to develop greater cooperation across government departments, with the aim of developing more environmentally sustainable
economic policies in the future.
•We need to fully integrate our environmental concerns with our economic development.
•We need an agri-environment programme that can be measured to show that it delivers for biodiversity, for the farmer and is value-for-money for the taxpayer.
