The Mayo News

A precedent concerning farmers’ rights to allow livestock graze on their own lands could be set in Mayo.

Landmark Mayo case could have implications for farmers nationally

Neill O’Neill

A legal precedent concerning the rights of farmers to allow livestock to graze on their own lands could be set in Mayo, after a test case being brought by the State began in Ballycroy District Court last week.
The complicated case, taken in the name of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, was against Mr Michael Joseph Leneghan and Mr Patrick McHugh, local farmers accused of allowing their sheep to graze on state-owned and protected lands, and during a ‘closed period’. A case of this nature has never before been taken in Ireland.
It was on May 2 last year when an inspector from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS), detected, pinned and pounded 22 ewes and ten lambs from within a protected area in the Owenduff/Nephin Complex SPA. The owners of these animals – the defendants – were located by checking the animals’ ear tags with the Department of Agriculture.
In court last week, State Solicitor for Mayo, Seamus Hughes, said that out of approximately 800 acres of land held by Mr Leneghan’s family in the region, just one per cent of this is outside the protected zone.
Solicitor Tom Walsh, representing both defendants, said that Mr Leneghan and his family had farmed the region for many years and that, as there were never any fences dividing up his land, the sheep had always roamed across the holding. In the middle of his land, which is protected as part of the SPA, is a chunk of about seven or eight acres (one per cent) of non-designated land, where he is allowed to farm as he pleases. Mr Walsh contended that to expect sheep to respect legal boundaries that exist only on paper was unreasonable.
Dr Andy Bleasdale, an Agri-Environment Co-Ordinator with the NPWS, said that they were legally obliged to designate certain areas as protected habitats and based on the criteria laid down in law, all but one per cent of Mr Leneghan’s substantial holding qualified to be included in this. He outlined that there are programmes in existence, such as the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) or the NPWS Farm Plan Scheme, which seek to reduce stock numbers to sustainable levels and compensate farmers where a loss occurs. These schemes also seek to promote on-going sustainable farming through maintaining reduced stock numbers and ensuring farmers adhere to the regulations of EU and Irish law. He told the court that Mr Leneghan is in receipt of a single farm payment and as a result of this he must comply with 18 directives, two of which are EU Birds and Habitats Directives.
He added that the Department of Agriculture has the authority to remove this payment from those in breach of their obligations to practice and demonstrate that they are farming appropriately under these directives, but this is not what the NPWS want to see happening.
He reiterated that they wish to promote sustainable farming as part of an overall healthy ecology of the area, and stated that out of almost 300 farmers with land fringing the Owenduff/Nephin Complex SPA, most are members of either REPS or the NPWS Farm Plan. Out of the rest, for whom the legislation is relevant, only ten are not currently part of any scheme and the defendants are two of these.
He also said that both the defendants had been written to before their sheep were seized in May last year, to warn them of their obligations and the potential implications of allowing sheep to graze on protected lands.
At the conclusion of the day’s evidence, Tom Walsh said that it would put an inordinate expense on his clients if they were to farm the way the NPWS and the Minister wished. He also stated that the NPWS bringing the power of the State down on farmers in Ballycroy was like using a ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’.
More evidence will be heard on the landmark case in coming weeks.

BALLYCROY LAND CASE
LEGISLATION INVOLVED

THIS case arose from EU Birds and Habitats Directives, which require member states to maintain or restore the favourable conservation status of habitats and species listed as protected – or where lands are designated as Special Protection Areas (SPAs), or Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). Thus, designation of an area as an SPA or SAC has wide-ranging implications for the use of surrounding land, with local farming practices inevitably affected.
This is particularly true of sheep farming, as, by nature, sheep roam to graze, often covering vast tracts of land. With no fencing to separate the land of many farmers – much of which is designated and protected by this law – from their adjoining non-designated grazeable lands, there is considerable difficulty for farmers when it comes to enforcing the regulations. In this instance the sheep were actually grazing in the national park, but it was stressed that had they been grazing in an area of the farmers’ own land which falls inside the boundary of the SPA, the farmers would be liable for the same offence.
The area of Ballycroy in question in this test case forms part of the Owenduff/Nephin Complex SPA, which is a vast area of protected blanket bog in west Mayo and is surrounded by the land of approximately 300 farmers. The area is protected under the European Council Directive of 1979, enforced by the European Communities Conservation of Wild Birds (Owenduff/Nephin 004098) Regulations 2005, and by the European Birds Directive 1979 and European Habitats Directive 1992.
The purpose of much of this law is to protect certain species of birds – in particular Merlin and Golden Plover in Ballycroy – and local farmers are prohibited from carrying out certain activities in the region without ministerial consent. Allowing animals to graze on lands designated as protected – even where the farmer owns that land – is therefore prohibited without prior written permission from Environment Minister John Gormley, and unless the herd/flock number has been reduced to a size determined as sustainable.
Under the legislation, all animals must also be removed from all protected areas for the months of November and December, and between February 15 and May 15 each year, to allow for regeneration. There are 121 SPAs in Ireland and around 3,000 in total across the E U.

Neill O’Neill

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