The Irish agri-environment: How turlough users and non-users view converging EU agendas of Natura 2000 and CAP

Managing marginal farmland with high nature value can be a strong source of conflict between farmers and conservationists. In the West of Ireland, marginal farmland is at the heart of Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) designation and turloughs are an example of marginal grazing land with the status of EU Natura 2000 Priority Habitat. A turlough can be thought of as the aboveground floodplain of an underground stream in karstified bedrock. It floods in winter but usually dries out in summer to allow the growth and grazing of wet grassland communities. Whereas most conservationists agree that summer grazing of turloughs is required to maintain a favourable conservation status, they often forget that this grazing depends on farmers’ willingness to graze turloughs, which depends in turn on a host of other, mostly policy-driven, factors. Hence, conserving the turlough habitat (aim of Natura 2000) throws up the question of the viability of the farming systems in which turlough grazing is embedded (aim of reformed CAP). To study this conflict, an approach based on Q-methodology was applied. Semi-structured interviews of turlough experts (both users and non-users) as well as spokespersons of various interest groups and research bodies yielded a large set of statements relating to turlough management, farming, nature, designation, and broader agri-environmental policy issues. Selected statements were submitted to former interviewees for rating from complete disagreement to complete agreement as well as to farmers of 12 different turloughs with SAC-status. Principal components analysis of these ratings leads to a typology of stakeholders according to the way they respond to the implementation of Natura 2000, to the changing agenda of CAP, and how this influences turlough management. The results show that farmers’ and conservationists’ perspectives are less opposed than expected and that this opposition is better described as mutual ignorance of each other's expertise. This calls for a better communication strategy to turn conflict into compromise. We suggest three pathways to do this: making better use of the local farmers’ press, fostering users’ input by the close collaboration with an agriculturalist and an ecologist on a farm-to-farm basis and a marketing approach that values agricultural produce from marginal land for its intrinsic qualities.