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Child Item

3000 km of hedgerow destroyed per year

SuperBowserWorld

https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2023/0203/1353624-hedgerows-ireland/

So, very little native forest and 3000 km of hedgerow removed every year.

What a depressing country this is.

And if the argument is "blocks the view of the road", crops up, can't trees/hedgerows be planted away from roads ..

What do people want to pass onto their kids ? Tarmac and potholes ?

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Seth Brundle

There possibly are more dairy farms removing internal hedges simply because most tillage farmers have already done these works.

We also need to note that there used to be grants available under the Farm Improvement Programme (CAP funded I think) for hedgerow removal - not sure if these are still available.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120206127#Comment_120206127

Part of the reason for that is that hedges don't really add anything to a crop, but they can be valuable to animals for shelter. In addition, hedges were also somewhat "free fencing" in terms of keeping livestock in. So traditionally, tillage farms would have been faster to level ditches and remove hedges.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120206141#Comment_120206141

Most of that would have been done decades ago for modernisation reasons. I think there is a reference point now of about 2009, after which a hedge cannot be removed. There is an allowance which can be planted, but it has to be planted in advance.

The article is actually very irresponsible. They are trying to give the sensationalist impression that anyone can just go out and unilaterally remove 500m of hedges. That can easily backfire as some people who have hedges might believe that, and think they are ok if they go out and bulldoze 500m tomorrow with zero mitigation. The person who does it will be breaking the law, and will likely be fined for it, but the hedges will have been destroyed as a result of being "tricked" by those who claim to want to protect them.................

Danzy

Agreed, it's a sensational article, removing hedges is a serious business now and the very most will not do it.

Nearly every town land in Ireland has had new hedges and little copse woods planted in the last 5 years with the Glas scheme. That's accelerating with the Acres scheme, there is no joy in good news though, no moralistic preaching opportunity, no chance of condemnation.

bmc58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120199814#Comment_120199814

Well done.Pity there's not many more like you.

StevenToast

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208081#Comment_120208081

There are plenty of farmers at it....its part of my job now...i wont be around forever...im only minding the land for the next generation....

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208180#Comment_120208180

It's nearly the norm at this stage.

Large bottle small glass

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208187#Comment_120208187

What's the norm with dairy farmers around me is spraying roundup into the ditches and strip grazing the monoculture between them

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120205661#Comment_120205661

It was something quick and easy to scale it to but that’s a good observation.

evolvingtipperary101

In the first few days of August, there was a hedge along side three fields, leading to a small forest, owned by a gun club, cut to the butt near me. Rural Tipp. The hedgerow was full of bird life - from all types of finches to everything else. Reported it. They emailed back to say they checked and they had farming reasons for doing so. Farmers can do what they like in this country. Bird population is being massacred.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208331#Comment_120208331

Here you go. Land currently for sale in Ireland. Put your money where your mouth is and buy some and fill it full of trees and bushes if you want.

https://www.daft.ie/commercial-properties-for-sale/Ireland/agricultural-land

bmc58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208180#Comment_120208180

As I said more farmers like you needed not only in Ireland but the world over.

French Toast

Intense agricultural productivity > hedgerow for hedgerows sake.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208769#Comment_120208769

More to life than monoculture

“Bumblebees, for example, they will shelter within the grass and bottom of hedgerows over winter,” Marrington says. “They are almost housing for nature I suppose.”

Bats, on the other hand, often use hedgerows for navigation.

“They [hedgerows] are almost like the bat’s motorways,” Marrington says. “Instead of going across fields, they will follow the hedgerow line.” The protected hazel dormouse utilizes hedgerows in a few ways. “They will hibernate [in hedgerows] over winter and emerge in spring, and spend a lot of time above ground in the trees and scrub,” Marrington says. “Then they start feeding on the [two prominent hedgerow plant species] blackthorn and hawthorn in April. They also use it as a dispersal corridor so it’s a link between small woodlands for foraging as well and for breeding populations too.”

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/hedging-biodiversity

magicbastarder

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208590#Comment_120208590

ah yes; 'go spend 50k on the topic and then come back to me with your opinion'.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208590#Comment_120208590

Can we see your proof of property deed 😶

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208902#Comment_120208902

Why 50k? There are plenty of options on there for less than that. You can't take it with you when you die. So why not put your money where your mouth is if it actually means that much to you

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208908#Comment_120208908

What are you requesting? I am not selling any of that property. You are free to buy it if you want. You won't be buying it from me.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208916#Comment_120208916

If you can't take it with you when you die why destroy it?

Just seems silly to throw out a rehash of 'if you don't like it leave' levels of argument. As though changing public policy to protect more hedgerows is out of the question.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120208984#Comment_120208984

I have no idea what you are on about.

I am saying to any poster who wants to make a positive difference that they can buy some land themselves and plant what they want on it (or let it grow wild).

(Technically you need planning permission for large actual plantations but I am not talking about that)

It is merely a suggestion if you want to do that. If you don't want to do it, then don't. It's up to you how you want to spend your money. Be that on increasing biodiversity in some location or spending it on coke and hookers. Up to you

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209002#Comment_120209002

Oh alright then. Seemed like a rather hostile suggestion, like we should shut down this conversation until they've bought new acreage planted some bushes for the finches.

Large bottle small glass

The same farm ten years apart

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209087#Comment_120209087

No. It's just a fair point. It would be a bit hypocritical to be calling on others to make changes to their property at their expense if you aren't willing to make any contribution at your own expense.

I'd say the average person reading this thread has a semi-detached house with a little back and front garden in an area which was little fields 50+ years ago. Many of said field boundaries could have been kept intact should the people be willing to forgo their gardens and live in high-rises such as what was built in Ballymun. If you are worried about hedgerows, and you don't want to buy land to plant some, then at least don't be contributing to the demand for urban sprawl by purchasing such properties. There would be far less concrete and tarmac and massive roads and all the associated pollution.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209900#Comment_120209900

No. It's just a fair point.

No, I don't think it is.

Ireland is a democracy where voting rights, Suffrage, is not dependent on land ownership.

If any person in the democracy wants to voice their opinion about the hedgerow policies of the country they have as every equal right as joe landowner to do so. Joe landowner, being joe landowner however, will have more natural standing in the courts (some lad in Clare can't sue you for knocking out your hedgegrows in Carlow, but some landowner can appeal to the court against the government making an encroachment on his property rights to protect (or remove) hedgegrows.

Side Q: are any of the hedgegrows in question Famine Walls? And if so they hold more than ecological or private value. Or are those independently protected?

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209916#Comment_120209916

I don't know what you are going on about. If a block of land comes up for sale, I can buy it or you can buy it. If I buy it, then I can't. by law, just cut down any hedgerows in it. That has been made clear to everyone on the thread (sensationalist articles notwithstanding). And nor would I have any interest in doing so. I'm not talking about removing hedgerows. I'm talking about those who apparently would like to direct that I plant more.

If you want the land to be used for new hedgerows to be planted all over on it then you buy it. You don't have the right to force me to plant anything I don't want to. Put your own money into the pot if you want to do that.

You can vote all you like in your "democracy" to say I have to plant more hedges. I'm not going to give a bollix about your vote because we have property rights here. If you want more hedges, buy a bit of land and plant all the briars and blackthorn and anything else you want on it. Get together with your buddies and pool your finances and do like the yank fella is doing out in Dunsany if you want. Your choice. If you are too mean to spend your own money to achieve something you say that you would like, then don't. But don't think you can spend mine to do it.

Or just do like many people do and buy your semi-detached, or detached, house out in the "suburbs" where once-nice fields and hedges are now covered in tar and concrete so that you can have the personal space you think you deserve, and take your few transatlantic flights a year and drive your polluting car everywhere and try to assuage any guilty feeling by pointing at the people who are the only ones actually minding the environment and its heritage

evolvingtipperary101

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209965#Comment_120209965

You're completely misunderstanding the issue and as a result having an argument with some misunderstood notion you have of previous posts. I've no idea what you're on about. A lot of paragraphs that boils down to vague ambiguities.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120209965#Comment_120209965

I did make a post about this point already didn't I.

Ranting up the wrong tree.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120198393#Comment_120198393

Thelonious Monk

Loss of hedgerows is terrible and I do notice the irish countryside far more bare than the English countryside but its happening in urban areas in Ireland too. Any bit of greenery in front and back gardens seems to be getting replaced by tarmac or gravel for car parking at the front and any signs of life removed at the back for minimum maintenance.

I've planted as much as I can in my little back garden in Dublin and I do get loads of bees and birds visiting which is good to see. Given the current insect apocalypse we're experiencing worldwide it would be nice if measures and incentives were rolled out to encourage urban and rural people to plant as many things as they can that will encourage biodiversity.

Reality is most people couldn't care less and just want a "tidy" garden so it's just another one of the many reasons why the planet is doomed.

pauly58

Here in West Cork over the last nearly fourty years there has been a lot of ditches with the hedgerows removed, how much was replanted : zero.

Over the road from us in 1986 there were six fields, now a single ten acre field. The farmers increase the field size to make it easier to turn the increasingly larger silage cutters, where would they replant a hedge, across the middle of another field, hardly.

Progress I suppose & before anyone comments, on our five acres we have planted hundreds of trees & hedging, native species largely, our fields teem with birds & wildlife.

Donald Trump

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120210184#Comment_120210184

I do notice the irish countryside far more bare than the English countryside

I'd be a bit surprised at that as the English would still tend to have very large estates with large landowners. It would generally be the larger landowners who would want bigger fields because they are the ones who operate at scale anyway.

You can google it if you want but the average farm size in Ireland is 80 acres and the average farm size in England is 200 acres.

Thelonious Monk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120210545#Comment_120210545

Go to the Chilterns near London, or the Cotswolds, or even when you're flying into Gatwick it's amazing how much more wooded areas there are than Ireland, and it's not sitka spruce, natural woodland. They're only a couple of % higher than Ireland for forest cover overall, but 9% of our 11% forest coverage are pine plantations, you see a lot more natural woodlands in Britain. Wales I noticed is the same, the train from London to Holyhead is an eye-opener and makes you realise how little nature we have in Ireland.