Implementing the European Nature Restoration Law is a “moonshot moment” – and if you want to get on board for the experience, another round of public engagement is on the way.
A moonshot moment is how Minister of State for Nature Christopher O’Sullivan described the ambitious goals contained in the law and the efforts Ireland will need to go to in order to achieve them.
To date those efforts have included a wide range of data-gathering, stakeholder workshops, public consultations and policy drafting that are feeding into the draft of the country’s first Nature Restoration Plan.
An Independent Advisory Committee appointed to do much of the groundwork submitted its recommendations on the plan to O’Sullivan last month, and the Minister has largely accepted them.
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Their work – and how his department responds to it – will drive “one of the most fundamental changes in the history of the State – especially for nature”, he said at a gathering to mark the handover.
“We know the state of nature is abysmal. The talking is over. Now is the time for action,” said O’Sullivan, a Fianna Fáil TD for Cork South West and a keen birdwatcher.
Aoibhinn Ní Shúilleabháin, who chaired the independent committee, described the legal obligation of EU member states to implement the Nature Restoration Regulation as a “generational opportunity to make a difference in how we look after nature”.
Since the launch of the recommendations, there has been much discussion on how the Government will fund the restoration and re-establishment of habitats estimated to cost up to €700,000 each year.
O’Sullivan said that a dedicated cross-departmental nature restoration fund would be required on top of various current environmental schemes. It has also been recommended that the Government attract private finance to contribute to the costs.
To date, Ireland spends the lowest relative amount of all EU member states on nature – 0.9 per cent of GDP, compared to the European average of 2.2 per cent.
An independent financial analysis of socio-economic costs and benefits of restoration measures is under way for the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), the lead organisation on Ireland’s Nature Restoration Plan. Analysis by the European Environment Agency has estimated the financial benefits of restoring ecosystems to be 10 times the cost involved. The benefits include avoiding costly disaster losses, improving public health, improving food and water security and ensuring greater climate resilience.
Ninety per cent of Ireland’s habitats protected by EU directives are currently in poor condition. And unlike some other EU countries, we don’t have a national maps for our habitats, flood plains, urban green space or urban trees.
The Nature Restoration Law and accompanying European Nature Regulation, which was agreed by the European Parliament in June 2024, requires the restoration of 30 per cent of habitats by 2030, 60 per cent by 2040 and at least 90 per cent by 2050.
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Unlike a European directive, a European regulation becomes law immediately in all member states, and the European Commission has set a deadline of September 1st, 2026 to receive member states’ draft national plans.
O’Sullivan has committed to wrapping much of the independent committee’s recommendations into his draft and publishing it for public consultation beginning Tuesday, June 2nd, for four weeks.
“The European Nature Restoration Law shifts the dial from nature conservation to nature restoration,” said Dr Dara Stanley, associate professor in applied entomology at University College Dublin (UCD). As one example, she said the requirement for an EU monitoring scheme for pollinators was a game-changer in understanding what is happening to pollinators.
Mapping an expanded network of marine protected areas while respecting the needs of fishing, aquaculture, shipping and offshore renewable energy installations will be another huge challenge
“The Nature Restoration Law requires us to reverse the decline in pollinators by 2030 and thereafter show an increase in these insects, which are essential for food crops and wild plants,” she said.
David Fenner from the NPWS described the wider task ahead.
“We have to assess what area of a particular habitat is not in good condition and restore a certain percentage of it. We have to determine the measures and determine how effective these measures are in 2030 and 2040 with reviews in 2032 and 2042,” he explained.
“Restoring nature is not a simple, linear process. A lot of the mapping work still has to be done and putting in place long term monitoring regimes will be critical. Each habitat and species will respond differently.”
O’Sullivan said for the NPWS to lead nature restoration on public lands [the State owns about 10 per cent of all land] would be central to the plan. “We will look to expanding national parks and State bodies’ acquisition of high value nature land,” he said.
He acknowledged that Coillte and Bord na Móna – the largest owners of public land in the country – were working on nature restoration within their holdings, but said they could do more.
Mapping an expanded network of marine protected areas while respecting the needs of fishing, aquaculture, shipping and offshore renewable energy installations will be another huge challenge.
“We still lack a lot of knowledge to inform the process for marine habitats in particular,” said Prof Tasman Crowe, vice-president of sustainability at UCD, who was a member of the independent committee.
Scaling up agri-environmental schemes and expanding pilot projects will be another key part of the process. “It’s about capitalising on a lot of the stuff we are doing already,” said Fenner.
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The independent committee, which included representatives of farming and fishing organisations, stated firmly that farmers, foresters and fishermen must be paid for nature restoration, and those payments must be new and not compromise income they receive for other environmental schemes.
Everyone acknowledges that restoring Ireland’s depleted terrestrial, freshwater and marine habitats and the species that depend on them is a hugely complex task, but Fenner was keen to point out that we are not starting from scratch.
“This work is entirely compatible with implementing the Habitats and Birds Directives, the Water Framework Directive and the Marine Strategy Framework directive, and we can count existing and developing programmes in our measures, providing they are demonstratable and necessary and effective for our target habitats,” he said.
The NPWS has begun the task of evaluating measures to restore nature already under way before deciding where and when to implement more.
The co-benefits for climate change mitigation will also have to be considered, as will how the Nature Restoration Plan interlinks with national energy and climate adaptation plans and the European Common Fisheries and Common Agricultural Policies. Seeing where fossil fuel subsidies and other energy subsides conflict with the ambition of the plan is also important.
Ní Shuilleabháin said she believed the biggest challenge would be communication and co-ordination of work between Government departments, State agencies and local authorities. “There needs to be a coherent policy across the Government. If the NPWS is only responsible for this work, it will fall flat. We depend on nature for fresh water, clean air, food production, but nature also influences our language and culture and shapes our heritage,” she said.
Environmental non-governmental organisations, community groups and individuals can now have their say on how the Government can avoid mistakes made in the past to take full advantage of this “moonshot moment”.
Reading the comprehensive recommendations of the Independent Advisory Committee would be a good place to start.
Those recommendations – and the reports from the consultations that fed into them – are available on restorenature.ie.
Details of the Government’s draft plan and how to submit observations on it will be released on gov.ie.
There will be another public consultation in 2027 before the Irish Government sends the final version of its National Restoration Plan to the European Commission for September 2027.
Timeline for completion of Ireland’s Nature Restoration Plan for the European Commission:
Starting June 2nd: four weeks public consultation on Ireland’s draft Nature Restoration Plan.
September 1st, 2026: Submission of Ireland’s draft Nature Restoration Plan to DG Environment in the European Commission.
September-December 2026: Dialogue between Irish Government and European Commission to clarify content of draft Nature Restoration Plan.
January- March 2027: European Commission submits formal observations to Ireland on its plan.
March-August 2027: NPWS reviews feedback from European Commission.
May-June 2027: Second public consultation on Ireland’s Nature Restoration Plan.
September 1st, 2027: Publication of final Nature Restoration Plan for submission to EC.
