Sir, – As the Irish Wildlife Trust urges the public to contribute to Ireland’s first National Nature Restoration Plan, one question hangs over the consultation: what is the point of asking citizens to help restore nature while public bodies continue to destroy it?
In Co Clare, as elsewhere, we are witnessing the annual spectacle of hedgerows being indiscriminately cut, reducing some of our richest wildlife habitats to ecological deserts in a matter of minutes.
This is routinely justified in the name of “road safety”, yet one is entitled to ask where the evidence is that such widespread and often excessive cutting materially improves safety, particularly on roads where traffic speeds and driver behaviour are the far greater risks.
Hedgerows are not untidy obstacles. They are among Ireland’s most valuable ecosystems, providing food, shelter and corridors for birds, pollinators, bats and countless other species. In a country where over 90 per cent of EU-protected habitats are already in unfavourable condition, their destruction should be regarded as an ecological emergency, not routine maintenance.
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What is perhaps most alarming is the apparent disconnect within Government itself. The State is preparing a legally binding national nature restoration plan to meet the requirements of the EU Nature Restoration Law, while local authorities and other public agencies continue management practices that directly undermine the very objectives the plan is supposed to achieve.
Nature restoration cannot simply be a document produced in Dublin while the machinery of the State continues to erase biodiversity on the ground. Restoration begins with stopping unnecessary destruction. It means recognising that hedgerows are critical infrastructure every bit as important as drains or roads, deserving of skilled ecological management rather than indiscriminate mechanical assault.
The Irish Wildlife Trust is right to call on the public to make submissions before the June 30th deadline. But the Government should also be asking itself a more uncomfortable question.
How can Ireland restore nature while its own agencies remain among those doing the damage? The first act of restoration is to stop the destruction. – Yours, etc,
ELLIE BYRNE,
Kilkee,
Co Clare.
