Northern Ireland will not have an independent "green" watchdog, Environment Minister Arlene Foster has said. Instead, the Environmental Heritage Service (EHS) will be re-branded, re-organised and re-launched in July 2008, with the mission of protecting the built heritage and natural environment.
This decision, which was made on Tuesday 27 May 2008 appears to have brought an end to the chance of an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), something which campaigners have recommended as long ago as 1982. They argue that the EHS is not able to adequately champion the environment because it is a part of the Department of the Environment (DoE), therefore making it difficult or impossible to prosecute cases against Government bodies such as Northern Ireland Water if they break environmental laws.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK and Ireland that does not have an independent environmental body, and Friends of the Earth (FoE) have threatened to go to the European Commission over the decision. Director of FoE John Woods said, "If Northern Ireland isn't prepared to take its own environment seriously, there is one body that will, that is the European Commission. They will enforce the letter of the European law. Far better we regulate ourselves, do it our way, in our own time and do it properly."
However Foster has instead announced a package of measures she hopes will modernise and strengthen environmental regulation and hit the worst offenders where it hurts the most. "EHS" investigators are better equipped than ever before to tackle serious environmental crime. Assets recovery is now the name of the game. Last year confiscation orders were used to recover earnings from illegal waste totalling over £833,000.
