Policy mechanisms
Sustainable land use is the intention of a variety of policy mechanisms such as Cross Compliance, Disadvantaged Area Payments, Natura 2000, and forestry and agri-environmental schemes. Lessons can and have been learned from past policies resulting in undesirable landscape effects. Headage payments, for example, encouraged overstocking of sheep on upland peatlands, which resulted in overgrazing, loss of vegetation, and soil erosion. Due to a combination of Commonage Framework Planning, and decoupling of EU agricultural support subsidies from production in 2005, overstocking of the uplands has now effectively been resolved. Teagasc research in Leenane in Mayo has developed hill sheep production systems to assist the continued viability of producers while reducing environmental impacts.
Another undesirable landscape effect is scrub encroachment which can impact negatively on natural and cultural heritage. This is a problem in the Burren, one of the most important and best-known landscapes in Ireland and Europe. The obligation to maintain land eligible for pillar one payment under the Single Payment Scheme, in Good Agricultural and Environmental Condition (GAEC) should alleviate the problem of scrub encroachment in future.
The story of hedgerows illustrates the determining influence of policy decisions. Hedgerows are a visual record of the historical processes of land use (McCormack and O’Leary, 2004). Most were planted under obligation of Acts of Parliament in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Until the 1970s, many hedgerows remained. Ireland’s entry into the EU in 1973 brought about change with the EU agriculture support system helping farmers to modernise and increase productivity. The rate of hedgerow removal between 1908 and 1998 in a study area in Cavan was 31 % (Keena, 1998). Grant aid for land improvement encouraged hedgerow removal until December 1994. A major impact of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) when introduced in July 1994 was the protection of hedgerows. Hedgerows and drains on all farms receiving direct payments may soon become protected as landscape features under GAEC. Since 2004, under REPS 3 and REPS 4, farmers have undertaken to plant or rejuvenate an incredible hedgerow length of over 10,000 km, the largest planting in over 200 years.