In Conserving the Emerald Tiger, Taylor reveals the way in which the environmental politics embrace issues that are at the very heart of Irish democracy: state intervention; economic growth and environmental conservation and political protest. Examining these issues, the author argues that while the Irish state recognized the need to revamp environmental policy with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1992, its principal aim was to ensure that further, more stringent regulation would not be detrimental to the economic performance of the Emerald Tiger.