The topography of Ireland is fairly homogenous: there are few high mountain ranges and most of the centre of the country is covered by a flat boggy plain. And with only four degrees of latitude from north to south, it lacks extremes of weather, the enveloping Atlantic Ocean producing a mild, damp climate. Summers are rarely hot, winters rarely cold, and in parts of the west it rains on two days out of every three.

In these conditions you'd expect to find broad-leaved woodland, but intensive pressure on the landscape during the centuries leading up to the famine of 1845 to 1849 denuded the country of its original tree cover. It has been replaced mostly by a patchwork of small grass fields divided by wild untidy hedgerows - long lines of trees acting as refuges for the former woodland community of plants and animals. The small population in Ireland today means that over much of the country the intensity of land use is lower than in many other European countries. Mixed farms are still more common than specialized intensive units.

Natural habitats such as peat bogs, dunes and wetlands still survive here, having all but disappeared elsewhere under the relentless pace of modern development. However, the pressures are growing. The great midland bogs are being rapidly stripped for fuel; mountain-sides are disappearing under blankets of exotic conifers; shoals of dead fish are becoming all too frequent a sight in Irish waterways; and rapid housing developments threaten some of Ireland's most valuable habitats, most notably in coastal regions