Report Cover Vol I - Clare County Library

The County Clare Wetlands Survey Patrick Crushell & Peter Foss 2008
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7.6 Damage to County Clare wetlands
The majority of, if not all, Irish wetland sites have been subject to some degree of human damage or
modification from their natural state in the past, and continue to be threatened by such activities.
Wetlands, and bog, fen and marsh areas in particular have historically been regarded as less productive
than adjacent agricultural land and measures have been taken to ‘improve’ their quality for agriculture.
The principal method of land improvement has usually involved some form of drainage, burning clearance
or addition of nutrients so as to facilitate the removal of peat, the planting of trees, or the creation of
new grazing areas, pasture or farmland.
In addition, a more recent trend has been the use of wetlands as areas to illegally dispose of rubbish and
landfill materials.
Reclamation and drainage works are an ongoing agricultural management tool which affect the
hydrological condition of wetland habitats.
During the course of the CWS, past and existing damage to wetlands were noted when these were
reported in third party reports, surveys and data sources, and an overall assessment of the severity was
undertaken where data was provided. The scale for the severity of damage used was: Not serious;
Serious; Very Serious and Unknown.
The damaging operation (based on the list of damaging operations recorded as part of the NHA surveys
by NPWS (Lockhart et al. 1993), and the main habitats likely to be affected are detailed in Table 7.5
below. This list of damaging operations on wetlands is by no means exhaustive (i.e. wind farm
developments and their impact on upland bog and wet heath areas are not included) and might be
expanded in the future should a detailed survey of damage to wetland sites be undertaken or based on
the results of field surveys.
Although insufficient time was available to undertake any detailed aerial photographic survey to record
damage on sites recorded in the CWS, published reports indicate that 28 of the sites recorded in the CWS
site database (see CWS Site Database on the report CD) were being damaged. It was clear from the GIS
survey that extensive damage has been caused to the Clare wetland resource by past planting of conifers
in upland bog areas, peat cutting throughout the bog areas and drainage activities across most wetland
types.
It is likely that the final number of sites being negatively affected by damaging activities will be much
higher, as the 2008 NPWS report on the conservation status of EU Habitat Directive sites in Ireland
(NPWS 2008), many of which are wetlands, found that the conservation status of these habitats is far
from satisfactory. In fact the overall assessment for wetland habitat types listed under the EU Habitats
Directive (see Appendix 6a) found that only 4 habitats were in favourable conservation status, while 7
were poor and 16 habitat types were deemed to have a bad conservation status overall.
Included in the latter bad conservation status category were priority habitats such as Lagoons,
Calcareous springs, Raised bogs, Blanket bogs, Rich fens and Wet woodland; while habitats defined as
poorly conserved included Dune slacks, Turloughs, Tall herb swamps, Marsh, Bog woodland and Scrub.
These habitats account for a significant part of the wetland habitat resource in County Clare.
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