The European Commission today (Monday, January 13) urged farmers to “contribute to the discussion of the EU’s Nature Restoration Law” as it launched a new public feedback period.
According to the commission the consultation is open until February 7 and will give all “stakeholders” and opportunity “to be informed” and participate in a discussion on the Nature Restoration Law (NRL).
The Regulation on Nature Restoration (Nature Restoration Law) came into effect last August.
It includes an overall target – to be reached at the EU level – that member states will put in place restoration measures in at least 20% of the EU’s land areas and 20% of its sea areas by 2030.
Different restoration targets apply to “different ecosystems” and each member state will have to decide which specific measures they will put in place.
Nature restoration law
The outgoing Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue, has previously stated that Irish farmers can have “confidence” that no changes will be forced on them.
He has also stressed that all nature restoration measures will be “voluntary” and that the legal obligation to achieve the targets set in the nature restoration law “is on the member states not individual landowners”.
According to Minister McConalogue the targets for restoration and rewetting of drained organic soils were reduced down from the initial proposal.
The European Commission today said that it was officially launching a “uniform format”, which is available on its website, for each member state’s national restoration plans under the Nature Restoration Regulation.
“This is a pioneering example of digital planning tools being utilised to limit administrative burden and reuse existing information, adopting the report once approach,” it outlined.
Commission
The commission believes this format will also make it easy for “stakeholders, governments and citizens” to compare and assess the national plans, keeping track of progress over time.
It also emphasised that it is committed to working with member states and “supporting them in the implementation of the Nature Restoration Regulation, including through this uniform format”.
“National plans will contain all planned restoration measures, the timeline for their implementation and the associated financial resources needed, ” the commission confirmed.