Hedgerows are Irish rainforests: save them!
OUR hedgerows are our rainforests. Yet we allow our farmers and councils destroy them, flail them and reduce them to stumps.
Our politicians make this easier and easier – to the point where insects now have no protection at all. As we allow this, we allow their shelter, food supply and habitat – things insects need – to be destroyed.
We cut or spray our roadside verges, our river and stream banks. And we have now started to remove the shrubberies from our city and town parks. It seems we all feel a duty to keep the green places down or to remove them altogether.
Few if anyone seems worried about this or issues a plea for a stop to this madness. Most politicians, when contacted about this, don’t even bother to reply. And if they do, they seem oblivious to ecological truths or the ecological damage they are doing. Fine Gael in particular, have been the very worst offenders among a very, very bad lot.
Now as we read of the imminent collapse of global insect populations and what that might do, we read of Irish concern – our media lowers its voice as if is worried. Meanwhile, the men and women in suits play shocked or look to Europe for answers. Why is hypocrisy always our only answer?
JOHN MacBREG, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.