The Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2022 is part of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which used by the European Union to coordinate support for European agriculture. The programme contains schemes which are centred around ensuring Ireland retains a competitive agri-food sector, while at the same time achieving more sustainable management of its natural resources and ensuring a balanced development of rural areas.

Progress on the programme is submitted to the European Commission annually via the Annual Implementation Report (AIR) and the 2022 report was used to populate the current biodiversity indictor. Within the programme, Priority 4 is aimed at Restoring, preserving and enhancing ecosystems related to agriculture and forestry and in 2022 the physical area support for Priority 4 included 832,691 hectares for Measure 10 Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) and 2,217,278.22 hectares for Measure 13 Areas of Natural Constraints (ANC). It should be noted that these figures could be an over-estimation as they include soil, water, and the whole area under ANC - some of which may not necessarily relate to biodiversity.

Read more about the Rural Development programme in the 2019 Citizens’ Summary which can be found here: https://www.gov.ie/en/collection/6606a-rural-development-programme-rdp-2014-2020/#monitoring-evaluation