Quarrying and Geoconservation in the Republic of Ireland—the Effectiveness of Guidelines for Operators

Abstract

Quarries are often the reason we know about the particular geology of an area in the first place, and the physical geological heritage we wish to protect may only exist at all because there has been extraction of an economic resource in a quarry or mine. This apparent dichotomy between a general understanding of ‘conservation’ and extraction of rocks or minerals is a hard message to get across to the general public and to those working in industry as well as planning officials and environment agency staff working in regulating industrial operations. This paper reviews efforts in Ireland to bridge that gap in understanding through the publication of some simple guidelines, aimed primarily at the extraction industry operators. This paper comprises a summary of the guidelines issued in the Republic of Ireland, a report on a simple survey conducted 7 years after their issue to assess industry awareness of them, brief reports on case studies where the guidelines have been used and lastly, an appraisal of the value of the guidelines in geoconservation, with a plan for future development and actions that would be applicable to anyone contemplating developing any similar guidelines or evaluation of existing ones.