The implications of Brexit for the environment on the island of Ireland

The much anticipated Brexit negotiations are due to start tomorrow.

I assume that the first item to discuss will be the order with which issues will be addressed.  The EU laid out its stall in late March and proposed a phased approach.  If it goes according to the EU’s plan, the island of Ireland will be a high priority (along with Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas on Cyprus where the UK also has land borders with another EU Member State) and should form part of first phase.  Clearly border issues including trade will dominate the conversation, but environmental considerations must feature early to prevent creating a 'hard environmental border'.

This was emphasised at a conference I attended in Dundalk on Friday (covered in the Irish Times here).  NGOs and officials from either side of the border explored the risks and opportunities arising from the UK vote to leave the EU. 

RSPB Lough Foyle (David Wootton, rspb-images.com)

The island of Ireland has a shared environment: there are three cross-border river basins and there are a number of cross-border designated sites including Lough Foyle, Carlingford Lough and the Pettigo Plateau.  That’s why, historically, we have developed a number of cross-border projects, most recently securing £4m from EU Interreg programme to improve the conservation status of 2,228ha raised and blanket bog while also aiding the recovery of breeding waders and marsh fritillary.

We have always argued that biogeography should trump geopolitics and we do not want regulatory divergence either side of the border resulting in lower environmental standards.

So, we think the island of Ireland should be recognised as a single biogeograhic unit.  The economic reasons for the EU Nature Directives remain: no Member State should be allowed to gain competitive advantage by trashing the environment; Europe's network of protected nature sites currently provide economic benefits of €200 to €300 billion per year; and invasive species were estimated to have cost the economies of Ireland and Northern Ireland a combined total of €261,517,445 in 2013.

In the expectation that trade will continue to free across the Irish border (although, of course, this is not guaranteed), environmental standards need to be equivalent and that means maintaining the existing levels afforded by EU laws whilst ensuring that agriculture and fisheries standards ratchet up in tandem.

The severity of this issue has been recognised at a European level, with the EU's Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, recently highlighting the risk of environmental "dumping" if there is a divergence of standards between the UK and member states.  There are currently over 650 pieces of EU legislation in force to protect the environment, habitats, air quality, waste, food safety and a myriad of other areas.They are the principal drivers for the vast majority of environmental protection in place in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

While the Brexit vote has created enormous uncertainty and complexity, I was heartened by the desire for NGOs from either side of the border (coordinated by Northern Ireland Environment Link and the Environmental Pillar) to collaborate to make Brexit work for nature.  I hope the same willingness to get good environment outcomes infuse the poltical negotiations starting today.