Power, Discourse and Participation in Nature Conflicts: The Case of Turf Cutters in the Governance of Ireland's Raised Bog Designations

Abstract

This paper explores how participatory processes and the politics of contestation and resistance converge to influence changes in discourses and institutional structures underpinning the implementation of the European Union Habitats Directive in Ireland. It highlights the potential of environmental partnership processes to disrupt the usual scalar hierarchy for regulation. The focus is specifically on the designation of raised bogs and the role of power relations and legitimacy discourses in participatory governance processes established by government. In particular, this paper critiques the participatory governance process and attempts to legitimize the enforcement of the Habitats Directive in the face of resistance by the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association (TCCA). Whilst the purpose of the designation is to protect unique habitats, another effect has been to prohibit the traditional right to cut turf on Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). The rationale behind the designation and the mechanisms by which this process has been mediated has been highly contested, with the TCCA claiming the scope inherent in the Directive to consider the de-classification of SACs to have been inadequately addressed by government. The paper concludes with a Foucauldian critique of regulatory authority, legitimacy discourses and agency in the application of participatory processes underpinning environmental regulation.

Key Words:

• Power
• legitimacy
• participatory governance
• designation
• agency

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Mark Garavan and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on a previous draft. Thanks also to Galway Mayo Institute of Technology for sabbatical leave and support to complete this research. The map of designated SAC raised bogs is by Dr Siubhán Comer, Cartographer, School of Archaeology and Geography, NUIG.

Notes

1. Originally, the number of sites affected was classified as 55 SACs; however, 3 sites were subsequently classified together as one SAC (NPWS, 2012). The TCCA refers to the 53 SACs as 57 sites, arguing that 1 of the SACs includes 5 individual bog complexes (TCCA, 2012a).

2. Turbary is a term used to denote the right to cut turf on a particular area of bog and can apply even when there are no other land rights to the bog. Turf cutting rights are often historic or customary in nature (Feehan & O'Donovan, 1996). The use of the term ‘turf cutter’ in this paper is consistent with its general use in the policy documentation and refers to those with turf cutting rights, on behalf of whom contractors cut the turf.

3. Following an initial ban on turf cutting on the SACs, the government granted a ‘derogation’ which was not sanctioned by the European Union (EU). This effectively gave turf cutters 10 years notice to cease cutting until 2009, when conflict escalated (Renou-Wilson et al., 2011).

4. This figure relates to the loss of active raised bog on both Natural Heritage Area sites (designated under Irish law) and SAC sites (Renou-Wilson et al., 2011).

5. 69 unrevised Dáil Debates and 5 Dáil Committee Debates that referred to the Peatlands Council were analysed.

6. Content analysis of the 74 Dáil debates (see note 5) revealed 21 references to the Peatlands Council's independent status.

7. Friends of the Irish Environment (2011), an environmental NGO and member of the Irish Environmental Network, supported the TCCA's interpretation of the June agreement in terms of its basis being in partial de-classification by stating in its letter to The Irish Times on June 14: ‘the Peatlands Council agreement is based on flawed science … to isolate parts of the protected bogs to allow cutting to continue … '.

8. See note 1.

9. According to Linehan (2005, p. 1), in the transcription of the Habitats Directive into Irish law ‘landowners were given the right to notification and participation to an extent not laid down or envisaged in the Habitats Directive'.

10. Deputy Flanagan put forward the motion on behalf of the Dáil Technical Group.