Every six years, as part of its obligations to report to Europe on its implementation of the Habitats Directive, Ireland must undertake national assessments of the conservation status of habitats and species protected under the directive. The third assessment report, due for submission in June this year, covers the period (2007 – 2012) and repeats the conservation status assessments undertaken in 2007; the basic structure of the assessments is the same as that in the 2nd report, although there are changes in the detail of the data requested by the European Commission.
The assessments have been undertaken by NPWS staff in conjunction with ecological consultants, Botanic Gardens, Inland Fisheries Ireland and academia.
All assessments will be uploaded to this NPWS webpage for open consultation over the coming weeks following internal approval.
The deadline for submission to the EU is the end of June. There is a technical delivery process which will involve a considerable amount of cross-checking and validation, therefore the deadline for comments is 2 weeks from the upload date of each assessment.
