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Poor policy record earns us last place in EU environment race

If European countries were racing to save the environment, Ireland would come last - by a long way.

Irish Independent June 30th 2001 According to a report from the World Wildlife Fund which strongly criticises our poor environmental record, the Irish Government lacks the political will to protect endangered species and and has dropped well behind others. Comparing the countries to athletes running a 30km race, Ireland has completed just 8km, according to the WWF. Denmark leads the pack with 21km covered, while even the traditionally environmentally unfriendly Greeks do better than Ireland. "What seems to be really wrong is there isn't enough protection of important sites, there is a lack of political will to implement this directive," said Sandra Jen, the WWF environmental officer, yesterday. yesterday. If there's a lack of political will, then there's also a lack of resources to help save the environment, she said.  But WWF denied its survey was too focussed on the requirements of EU law, insisting that both in theory and in practice, Ireland's record is the worst.  "We didn't just focus on legislation. Ireland scores very low at protecting species and habitat but also at the implementation of the legislation," she said.  Intensive sheep farming was also raised by the report as the kind of practice here that is destroying natural bird habitats, she said. Copyright © Irish Independent 2001