"Dangerous plumes of smoke disrupting activity as air pollution pesters people across Canada.'
That was an online headline in the Toronto Globe and Mail on the last day of June. Perhaps we should be relieved that Canadians are being merely pestered from all that smoke from all those fires they are unable to extinguish.
Down south a bit, in the U.S., many are a good deal more than pestered. Lives are being cut short. Down south a bit more, in Texas, it's not smoke but raging heat that is the current danger. Meanwhile, there is no let up in the destruction of the world's rainforests according to a New York Times report, this despite all the lofty pledges made by various nations.
So where to seek refuge? Ireland might be an idea. Lovely scenery, great views, and moderate temperatures, at least for now.
Well, maybe not.
There was this in the Irish Times: "Ireland has lost a long-running case brought by the European Commission over failures to adequately implement the EU Habitats Directive for the past 20 years.
"The Commission accused Ireland of infringing the directive by failing to designate 217 of 423 sites as special areas of conservation."
Ooops.
The report continued in part: "The directive requires Ireland to identify a network of Natura 2000 sites where important or endangered animal or plant species, or certain rare or vulnerable habitat types are present, to a degree that is significant at a European level. The case focused on priority habitat types at a wide range of Irish sites, namely coastal lagoons and blanket bogs, and on a particularly endangered species, the freshwater pearl mussel."
Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan said the outcome was an inevitable result of long-term neglect and failure.
“We, like many European countries, have not prioritised the protection of nature and biodiversity in the way that we should,” he said, adding that the case brought into sharp relief the critical importance of ensuring the EU Nature Restoration Law was progressed and actioned."
The Times report quoted Irish Wildlife Trust campaigns officer Pádraic Fogarty as describing the Commission's ruling as "a damning indictment of Ireland’s failure to protect nature over the past two decades" and "a direct consequence of previous governments’ decision to defund the NPWS (National Park and Wildlife Service) while simultaneously launching expansion plans for food and drinks [sectors],” Fogarty said.
“Basically, the State has put profit before clean water and healthy land and sea that we all depend on.”
Mr. Fogarty acknowledged that the current government "has made some progress in addressing these issues," but he added that the State remains “far from seeing the transformative changes that we know are needed if we are to implement environmental laws and ultimately address the biodiversity and climate emergency."
He further stated: “We’re seeing a new forestry programme that that will be based predominantly on monocultures of exotic conifers, continued illegal peat extraction in SACs, a Wildlife Bill before the Dáil that will remove protections from areas designated for protecting bogs, resistance to any restrictions on trawling the ocean, even in ‘marine protected areas,' and an agriculture sector whose environmental footprint is out of control. And many politicians and sectoral interests are still opposing the [EU] Nature Restoration Law.”
Meanwhile, however, individuals are stepping up to do battle with the ongoing deterioration of Ireland's natural habitat.
There was also this in the New York Times last week, a full page in the front section no less. It was written by Ed O'Loughlin who was reporting from the Beara Peninsula, which is shared by counties Cork and Kerry.
O'Loughlin wrote in part: "The coastline, with its cold, clean winds and ever-changing skies, gives an impression of unspoiled, primal nature. Yet, where generations of painters, poets and visitors have rhapsodized about the sublimity of nature and the scenic Irish countryside, ecologists see a man-made desert of grass, heather and ferns, cleared of most native species by close-grazing sheep that often pull grasses out by the roots.
"Rewilding, the practice of bringing ravaged landscapes back to their original states, is well established in Britain, where numerous projects are underway. For Ireland, this would mean the re-creation of temperate forests of oak, birch, hazel and yew that once covered 80 percent of the land but now - after centuries of timber extraction, overgrazing and intensive farming - have been reduced to only 1 percent.
"Ireland has committed to increasing the total proportion of forested areas to 18 percent by 2050, from 11 percent currently. Yet this would still be well below the European Union average of 38 percent, and most of it would consist of commercial spruce and pine plantations that make up more than 90 percent of Ireland’s current woodlands.
"Grown to be harvested within 30 to 40 years, these nonnative conifers are treated with chemicals that pollute groundwater and rivers. Ecologists say little can grow on a forest floor carpeted with dead needles and a desert for insects and native wildlife. And much of the carbon they store is released again when they are harvested."
Seems that rewilding, the Irish version, has a few mountains to climb.
