Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has confirmed that Landscape Actions (LAs) are now open for applications from Co-operation Project (CP) teams in the Agri-Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES).

These actions will support farmers in the CP approach of the scheme to target specific environmental priorities, according to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The LAs are large-scale environmental actions focusing on issues such as threatened species, water quality protection, invasive species management and encroaching scrub management in species-rich grassland.

As LAs are larger scale complementary environmental actions compared to the Non-Productive Investments (NPIs), the ACRES CP teams will play a key role, through their direct engagement with ACRES Co-operation participants, in the "efficient and effective" targeting of LAs at landscape level in their respective ACRES CP zones.

The list of potential Landscape Actions and their specifications is currently in a draft state.

They will remain in a draft state until a public consultation process on an appropriate assessment, required under environmental legislation, of the Landscape Actions has been completed.

That public consultation has now been launched, the details of which are on the department website. The closing date of this consultation in August 15.

While the application window for Landscape Actions opens today (July 18), during the public consultation period, decisions on those applications will have to await the completion of the public consultation process.

The application process is being made available in the meantime to enable the ACRES CP Teams to engage with the ACRES farmers in their areas and prepare applications in the form of a Landscape Action Annual Works Plan, according to Minister Heydon.

There are several potential LAs to be chosen, grouped into four categories, namely: management of invasive plant species; habitat and wildlife support; hydromorphology (including peatland restoration); and scrub track management.

Commenting on the opening of applications, Minister Heydon said: “I am pleased to announce that the Landscape Action element of the ACRES Co-operation approach is now available to ACRES participants in the eight ACRES high-priority environmental areas.

"I look forward to the positive engagement of those participants with the CP teams, and to the effective deployment of the available funding of €50 million over the next three years to implement Landscape Actions, which will benefit the local environment while also contributing to improving the quality and score of lands in the coming years, leading to an increased results-based core payment for the participants themselves," Minister Heydon added.