When two tribes go to war over Mother Nature

THE trees beyond this country town are in unbelievable bloom, turning a routine drive into an awesome experience, even on overcast days, thanks to their canopy of luminous green leaves.

Though joy turns to trepidation at the thought of the authorities getting wind of this natural wonder and wreaking havoc in the name of some hard-to-fathom health and safety hazard. For all across this land, from hedgerows to meadows and mountaintops, some folk seem intent on mangling magnificent Mother Nature.

Take the felling of old trees in a church graveyard in the midlands recently, despite locals pointing out the pathetic line of jackdaws and crows on a nearby wall, twigs clamped in their beaks as they watched their homes disappear. The hired hackers joked that they couldn’t see them; which was all too prophetic, for some birds and chicks would have died as a result.

Then there was the controversy over Irish Rail’s devastation of mature trees and hedgerows in Co Offaly which led to more nests, chicks and biodiversity being crushed, despite objections from the Green Party and bodies like the National Park and Wildlife Service, the Irish Wildlife Trust and Biodiversity Ireland, as well as dismayed local farmers. Irish Rail cited safety of train journeys to defend its severe breach of the six-month season for hedgerow management.

Little wonder that at times there appears to be

two tribes in this country: one which is horrified by the rampant disregard for wildlife and its habitat by the other, which seems oblivious or indifferent to the catastrophic impact of its actions.

Yet maybe this divide is no mere illusion; for Derek Mooney’s introduction in Collins Complete Guide to Irish Wildlife reminds us that Ireland had one of the best documented natural histories in the world at the beginning of the last century. But independence had an insidious downside. For all that changed with the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1921, when an interest in nature was seen as belonging to an ascendancy culture. This attitude persists in the scornful reaction to anyone who challenges the destruction of our land, dismissing concerns as ‘out of touch’ with what is predictably dubbed the ‘harsh reality’ of rural life.

So it’s ironic that Mooney notes that, along with rising educational standards and the advent of television, it is city dwellers who primarily have championed nature, with a mainly urban-based conservation movement pushing for its protection.

Joining the EU has also forced us to heed European environmental directives and acts as a vital antidote to the sense of entitlement inherent in an insular mentality. As evident by those rural TDs who achieve power by enabling their supporters to have their wicked way, regardless of the environmental impact.

But in this age of climate change, patience is running out. For why should the rest of us pay the price for a toxic tribe and their short-term profit that cannot see the wood for the trees?