Ireland needs policy to halt rapid environmental decline, EPA warns

Damning report says outlook for natural world is grim unless rapid action is taken

There has been a ‘dramatic reduction in the number of Ireland’s most pristine rivers‘ from 500 sites to 20 in just 30 years, according to the report. Picture: Rollingnews.ie

Ireland needs to develop a national environmental policy position to stop the widespread decline in the quality of our natural environment, according to a new report.

Launching its seventh State of the Environment Report, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cautioned that the “overall quality” of Ireland’s environment was “not what it should be”.

The EPA also warned that without a drastic acceleration of action across a number of environmental indicators, the outlook was not optimistic.