The State should pay farmers if it expects them to open their lands in the Burren to tourists, a conference was told at the weekend.
Addressing the 13th annual Burren spring conference in Ballyvaughan yesterday, Dr Liam Downey said: "It is very hard on farmers and, if I was a farmer, I would expect to be paid for public access to my farm. I think the State has to carry that cost if the State wants access for tourists, and the Burren is a case study on this issue."
The former head of Teagasc and current adjunct professor of environmental resource management at UCD told delegates: "If we are really worried about maintaining the Burren, farmers are going to have be compensated to farm in an appropriate way, because the Burren is a farm community."
Dr Downey added: "The State must find out what economic value the Burren environment is worth to Ireland. It might be a very philistine way of dealing with the issue, but farmers have to be compensated. It has to happen.
"What is the difference between paying subsidies to a farmer for public access to an archaeological site on his lands and paying a farmer for cattle?"
The conference - entitled "The Burren: Tourist Playground or Environmental Resource?" - was also addressed by tour operator Mr Christy Browne, who told delegates: "There is only one publicised walk in the whole Burren, and that is the Burren Way, but there are 10 or 15 better walks in the Burren, and there is no access to them."
He continued: "We are spending millions on interpretative centres, but people want to see the real thing on the Burren landscape. One of the greatest sites in the Burren is the fort at Ballykinvaraga, but there is no access. But you can't blame the farmer for this, because of insurance issues and the effect unrestricted access would have on his land.
"If only a fraction of the money spent on the various centres was used to compensate farmers, entry would be regularised and would allow access to all of its [the Burren's\] monuments."
Archaeologist Mr Paul Gosling expressed concern at Dr Downey's proposal to pay farmers for access. He said: "I would be concerned that such a move would be to commodify heritage. If you want to go down the road of commodifying everything, I think that's bad, and I think we would lose precisely the whole idea of an Irish welcome as being a qualitative thing."
Dr Brendan Dunford, author of Farming and the Burren, said that Shannon Development's policy on promoting the Burren was "to bring as many people as possible into the area". However, no structures were in place to protect or manage the resource.
