Ireland's National Parks

Pixel Eater

So Ireland has six national parks with the cumulative area of 650km sq, less than 1% of the total land area. Some are quite small; the Burren Nation Park is a mere 15km sq. In contrast in the UK, for example, The Lake District National Park is 2,362km sq. and their national parks make up appoximately 11% of the total land area of England and Wales. I do realise that national parks are very different over there but is there anything to be said of increasing the size of our national park?

Mickeroo

The ones in the UK aren't technically national parks which is why they are so big compared to ours.

These are the categories:

Category Ia — Strict Nature Reserve.
Category Ib — Wilderness Area.
Category II — National Park.
Category III — Natural Monument or Feature.
Category IV — Habitat/Species Management Area.
Category V — Protected Landscape/Seascape.

The UK are all Cat V, we went for Cat II because it sounds better on brochures but really that category is actually completely unsuitable for Ireland imo as it's designed for large wilderness areas like the US national parks (all Cat II aswell afaik). Our parks have to be tiny to accommodate this category as you can't have people living inside them to get the designation.

We would be much better off with the UK model here as our landscapes/habitats are all man made and we would be able to increase the designated area to encompass say the entire Burren for example rather than the tiny area in the current designation.

Pixel Eater

Yeah the UK's 'national parks' aren't really national parks at all since there is so many people living in them plus they are mostly privately owned. I don't even know why they are called national parks at all, bit of a misnomer really.


I wouldn't expect our national parks to be expanded to such an extent but a few hundred square kilometers could be added added under the current criteria. The aforementioned Burren could be enlarged from 15 to 45 or 50km sq.

Ubbquittious

Still there is a good bit of difference between "Category V" and "Every square inch planted with grass and filled with as many Holstein Frisians as possible"