Protection of Limestone Pavements

Oldtree

I would welcome any additional information that could help me to prevent the destruction of Limestone Pavements in my area. thank you.

There are 3 recently commenced (last 5 years) quarries in my area that are operating on Limestone Pavements. These pavements, in my opinion, were much more attractive than the usual flat pavements you would see in pictures of the Burren, as these have deep clefts with well worn edges to the grikes that give rounded edges on the top face of the pavement. See attached photos of trees and Pavements. Sadly most of the top rock has now been removed, in the full knowledge of the council. No enforcement action has been taken to prevent this destruction within these unauthorised developments.

See this article in the Mayo News:

http://www.mayonews.ie/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5510&Itemid=38

The background to this lack of protection is as follows:

The European Council Directive 92/43/EEC of 21 May 1992 on the conservation of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora lists the following for protection under:

8 Rocky Habitats and Caves
82. Rocky slopes with chasmophytic vegetation
8240 * Limestone pavements
The sign ‘*’ indicates priority habitat types.

Sadly when this directive was transposed into Irish Law, blanket protection was not given. Protection was only given to names places such as SACs and NHAs.

In 2008 the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government published “The Status of EU Protected Habitats and Species in Ireland - Conservation Status in Ireland of Habitats and Species listed in the European Council Directive on the Conservation of Habitats, Flora and Fauna 92/43/EEC” found that:

Limestone pavements (8240) Conservation Status Assessment Report
Overall assessment of Conservation Status was Unfavourable and Inadequate.

Neither the Council nor the NPWS appear to have responsibility for the protection of Limestone pavements outside names areas. However An Bord Pleanala has refused planning permission for retention of a quarry due to the area containing a limestone pavement priority habitat listed in the 92 EU Directive. See the board’s decision here:

http://www.pleanala.ie/casenum/228086.htm

The board’s inspectors report was however worrying as he had decided to grant planning for this quarry?!?!?!? One has to wonder why. Even the board’s direction and order bring up the issue of traffic hazard which the inspector has casually overlooked.

But following the above NPWS 2008 report it appears that the NPWS have started looking at ways of trying to protect these unlisted pavements, with a 8 month project, see here:

http://www.npws.ie/en/CurrentResearchProjects/HabitatSite/Other/

The following story was published in Cong’s (Co Mayo) parish magazine, Cunga, this year, and deals with some of the unique flora on Limestione Pavements within Cong’s hinterlands. I have the authors permission to use it here and his photos of the detail of a larger twig that shows buds and bud scars and photos of two dwarf trees 100 and 130 years old. The management of Limestone Pavements for ecology usually requires the removal of vegetation by hand or by spray, but one point comes to mind after reading the following article if we were to manage these lovely pavements as such: under Irish law it is illegal to fell trees over 10 years old?!?!?!?!

How Old is that Tree?

An early, and exact, method of ageing a tree was to fell it and then count the annual rings. Not a very satisfactory method from the point of view of the tree.

Then some bright spark had the idea of using a long, thin, hand borer to take a core sample from the tree. This allowed the annual rings to be counted giving an exact age, without felling the tree. All went well until a student found what he thought was be the oldest tree in the world, a Bristlecone Pine in the Snake Mountains of Nevada. The student’s three foot long borer got stuck in the tree and he was given permission to fell the tree to retrieve his borer. At that time, it was the oldest tree in the world, at 4,900 years old!

They say “every cloud has a silver lining”. The great storms over the last few decades, especially the one in 1987, blew down tens of thousands of trees in England and France. Enthusiasts collected measurements of the girths of trees and then counted the annual rings. This exercise amounted to a database which allows the girth of a tree to be measured and a good proximity of its age given. There are three main categories in this database for many species of tree: open grown, woodland edge and woodland. There are three main categories as trees generally grow at different rates in the three situations. Even hollow trees can now be aged using this method.

In 1801, Walter Wade was the first to notice the “many very old dwarf oaks in the islands on Lough Corrib, particularly Bilberry Island.” Dwarf trees are a form of natural bonsai, with their root growth restricted. This has the effect of diminishing their growth potential. Bonsai is a word used to describe the cultivation of dwarf trees and Bonsai as a type of gardening was started by the Japanese a few centuries ago. There are many species of trees dwarfed in the hinterlands of Cong. Ash, Birch, Willow, Oak, Spindle, Mountain Ash, Beech, Sycamore, Crab Apple, to mention a few.

One particular Ash tree growing out of a shallow cleft on a Limestone Pavement in Cong would be very easy for the casual observer to overlook. It is an excellent example of a dwarfed tree. I estimate that this diminutive tree is at least 100 years old.

The only technical detail needed to roughly estimate the age of these trees is as follows. The top bud on a twig opens in the spring and a new twig emerges. When this happens the bud leaves a circular scar behind it on the twig. These scars are visible on the twig for a number of years. The distance between each scar represents one years growth. Have a look at the example of two years of growth in the photograph. The growth of a twig can vary from year to year.

It gives a better indication of growth, over time, to measure the length of the twig from the tip of the twig to the last visible scar, count the scars and you have the age of the twig you measured. Then measure the overall length of a branch/stem. Divide the total of the branch/stem measurement by the measurement of the twig and multiply by the twigs age in years. This will give you the approximate age of the branch/stem. This is easier to do in winter.

This Ash is a mere 153cm from its base to the tip of its longest, uppermost twig. There are buds on this years growth only, and now that the leaves have fallen the matt black buds are clearly visible. The uppermost twigs increased by 1.5cm in length this year. A straight correlation 153cm divided by 1.5cm gives an age of around 102 years. But measuring back the twig to the last visible leaf scar, shows that the twig increased in length by 12cm in the last 9 years. 153cm divided by 12cm multiplied by 9 years gives 114 years. It would be reasonably safe to say that this tiny Ash tree is between 100 and 115 years old.

I have measured another, slightly larger, Ash tree that had everything which made it a serious challenge to age. It is growing out of a deep cleft in a limestone pavement, no soil visible, it is dwarfed, it has lost its leading shoot sometime in the past (giving it a bushy shape) and it is hollow. The ageing of this Ash tree was less straightforward, but using similar methods I have calculated an age range of between 130-170 years for this miniature Ash tree. The closer you look the more there is to see, and these Methuselahs are by no means the only ones of their kind amongst the unique flora here in Cong.

lostexpectation

more before and after pics please.

Oldtree

I would have to trespass to get good photos of the "after" as they are back a few fields back and below the horizon, but due to a FOI request to the council I have seen their photos (in photocopied black and white) and it looks like a bomb has hit the sites! I will try to scan these in over the weekend to give an you an impression. There are no "before" photos that I know of other than the ariel ordnance survey taken in 2000 which gives a view from a height so the detail is lost somewhat, but i will get a few of a local site that show what the limestone pavements did look like.

lostexpectation

I was hoping for more then (in photocopied black and white) so called e gov and all we get in planning is photocopies why.

how about some placemarks on a googlemap

Húrin

Amass a body of evidence of wrongdoing for the council.

If they ignore you take it to the national level.

Get a legal expert on side, to see if you would have a leg to stand on if you felt it necessary to legally challenge the company or Mayo Co Co.

If all else fails assemble a direct action team, to physically disrupt the site's operations. This type of protest has a long history of success, especially in the UK 1990s anti-roads movement, and in the current anti-runway campaigns at the London airports.

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote:

Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored."