Ireland is party to the international Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD desribes the value of protected areas as follows.

“Protected areas are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation; they maintain key habitats, provide refugia, allow for species migration and movement, and ensure the maintenance of natural processes across the landscape. Not only do protected areas secure biodiversity conservation, they also secure the well-being of humanity itself. Protected areas provide livelihoods for nearly 1.1 billion people, are the primary source of drinking water for over a third of the world’s largest cities and are a major factor in ensuring global food security. Well managed protected areas harbouring participatory and equitable governance mechanisms yield significant benefits far beyond their boundaries, which can be translated into cumulative advantages across a national economy and contribute to poverty reduction and sustainable development including achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. As the detrimental impact of climate change threatens the planet, protected areas provide a convenient solution to an inconvenient truth. Better managed, better connected, better governed and better financed protected areas are recognized as the key to both mitigation and adaptation responses to climate change.”

(Source: https://www.cbd.int/protected/overview)