On May 8, 3:17 pm, mothed out wrote:
On May 8, 12:49 pm, Des Higgins wrote:
On May 8, 11:15 am, mothed out wrote:
On May 7, 11:53 pm, (Way Back Jack) wrote:
TV documentaries and travelogues reveal a lot of lush "green" in those
countrysides but a relative scarcity of trees. Is it climate? Too
windy in Ireland? Sheep and/or other livestock?
One factor is this:
The EU has been paying farmers to cut down trees for a long time.
I think it is now paying people to plant them again.
Tree coverage in Ireland was at its lowest point a century ago. The
EU has nothing to do with it. In fact, Irish tree coverage has been
slowly growing since the 70s. The trees disappeared for farming, fuel
and for building (including ships), centuries ago.
You may well be right. I'm no real expert on this.
I can say that I once saw a documentary on the subject in which they
interviewed a farmer, who seemed a really reasonable person with a
willingness to help the environment as far as he is able. However, he
explained how he had no realistic option but to fell a lot of the
trees on his land because he then received better subsidies for
putting the land to different use. He just couldn't afford to write
off the sum he made from doing that, I couldn't have said I'd have
done a differently in his shoes, which spelt death for most of the
trees on his land.
Another EU factor which I think may have an impact on re-
forestation is the big subsidies that currently go to sheep farmers.
There are 2 issues here; one is whether or not EU subsidies are a good
idea for the environment. It is complicated; there are certainly
problems caused by it.
Equally, much of the environmental legislation here on water quality
etc. only exists or is only enforced because of the EU.
However, what we were asking about was tree cover. How come, I can
remember the Dublin mountains being just as treeless as they are now
(maybe more so), even before Ireland joined the EU? Ireland lost its
forests in the 16th and 17th centuries. Yes it is sustained partly
that way because of agriculture; centuries of it.
The EU is neither here nor there.
The para below is from
http://www.woodlandsofireland.com/do...nt_History.pdf
"By the time of the death of Elizabeth I
in 1603 AD, tree cover in Ireland was
diminished to the extent that, according
to estimates, woodland cover accounted
for no more that 12.5%, and as low as
2%, of the land area. At the same time,
both merchant and naval shipbuilding,
although never practiced on the scale it
was in Britain, also increased in Ireland.
Timber for ships was exported to England
from Waterford in 1608 AD, and the East
India Company is known to have established
a yard at Dundaniel in Cork some time
before 1613 AD (Neeson, 1995)."
this below is from
http://www.wicklowmountainsnationalpark.ie/history.html
"Much of the area, particularly in the south, was heavily forested and
had proved a boon to rebelling forces during the centuries of war, so
a policy of removing the tree-cover was instigated. In fact, forestry
was already well established as County Wicklow's first true industry.
During the Tudor period, timber had become valuable. It was required
for fuel and heat, housing and ship-building. Wood-charcoal was also
the main resource used for smelting iron. The magnificent oak woods
near Shillelagh, in the south of the county, were particularly well
renowned and Sir Arthur Chichester in 1608 noted that the timber from
these woods could '...furnish the King for his shipping and other uses
for 20 years to come'. At this time Wicklow was the only remaining
county in Leinster with extensive tree cover."
For example, most of the hill landscapes in the british isles, in all
the various countries, are completely without trees because they are
given to sheep farming. As I understand, this farming would not be
happening on anything like this scale without the subsidies. I have a
friend with some land in Conemara, and the whole area is (in one way
of looking at it) 'devastated' by sheep farming. Just by fencing off a
part of his land, we soon saw how small tree saplings were taking root
which would otherwise be barren, close-munched grass. Also, when you
find small rocky areas where sheep can't reach on cliffs and
waterfalls, you will nearly always see the native tree species such as
oak trying to come though. I was pretty sad to find about ten
neglected sheep (belonging to his neighbour) dying slowly and
miserably on land less than a mile from their owner's house, mostly
dying of parasitic infection of the liver I believe. These sheep lie
incapacitated sometimes for days on the ground before dying. Someone
told me the owner doesn't really care coz he only keeps the sheep for
the subsidy. I don't know if that's true, but whatever, it didn't look
like real farming to me. On top of this, water supplies to places like
Galway have been rendered undrinkable because of washoff and general
shite from the farming, and the land owners are not fencing the
animals away from the watercourses, rivers etc, which they should be
doing I think, and is part of the cause of the problem. Personally I'd
like to see a long term policy regarding EU subsidy which moved away
from this kind of omnipresent artificially subsidised sheep industry.
It doesn't make much sense...for example, in Wales I remember being
able to see thousands of sheep from my windows, but would still always
find New Zealand lamb in the freezers of the local chain stores (and
stop to think how much energy and pollution was spent shipping that NZ
lamb to the UK). In view of the environmental damage this strangely
organised industry causes, surely there is some less damaging way we
could subsidise rural people? While this system holds sway, i don't
see how you'd get the chance to restore the kind of tree cover that
existed historically in Ireland.