07 / LANDSCAPE
PHOTOGRAPHS BY KIERAN CUMMINS
INVASIVE SPECIES
THE LAW AND YOUR BUSINESS Kieran Cummins, environmental law specialist, details the legal issues surrounding invasive species in Ireland and the implications it has for your business
T
he 2011 European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations (S.I. 477) was enacted to combat the growing problem of invasive species. The regulations state that “The Wildlife Act 1976, the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2000, the Wildlife (Amendment) Act 2010 and these Regulations shall be construed together as one”. Of note to the horticultural sector are sections 49 and 50. Not since the introduction of the Noxious Weeds Act [1936] and various regulations associated with that Act, have law makers directed their attention to specific species. It is fair to say that the latest initiative has largely been as a result of Ireland’s membership of the EU and the various habitats and related directives. Many of the plants, which are now considered to be invasive, were in the past sold as ornamental plants or as oxygenator plants for garden ponds. Unfortunately, having escaped from their cultivated environs, they have caused significant problems to the surrounding countryside.
SECTION 49 PLACES A ‘PROHIBITION ON INTRODUCTION AND DISPERSAL OF CERTAIN SPECIES’ WHILE SECTION 50 IMPOSES A ‘PROHIBITION ON DEALING IN AND KEEPING CERTAIN SPECIES’ 34
Some 35 species are then listed in the third schedule to these regulations, while a number of animals are listed separately. Schedule three also specifies a prohibition on the movement of vector material with specific reference to “soil or spoil taken from places infested with Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica), giant knotweed (Fallopia sachalinensis) or their hybrid Bohemian knotweed (Fallopia x bohemica)”. Section 49 provides that (save in accordance with a licence), “any person who plants, disperses, allows or causes to disperse, spreads or otherwise causes to grow in any place specified in relation to such plant in … the Third Schedule, … shall be guilty of an offence.” Section 49 also provides for a defence (if it can be proven) that the accused took “all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to avoid committing the offence”. Additionally, Section 49 provides that if the Minister considers that a species poses a threat to the objectives of the Birds and Habitats Directives, including the protection of European sites, of habitats, and of species of flora and fauna, including birds, he or she may authorise the destruction by appropriate means. Section 50 has yet to be enacted (as provided for by Section 74). Notwithstanding Section 50 provides that “Save in accordance with a licence … a person shall be guilty of an offence if he or she has in his or her possession for sale, or for the purposes of breeding, reproduction or propagation,
HORTICULTURECONNECTED / www.horticulture.ie / April/May 2014
