An influential ecologist and environmental scientist, who was previously campaigns officer for the Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT), believes some environmentalists in Ireland have “censored” themselves, in order not to be seen as ” criticising” farming.
Pádraic Fogarty told Agriland today (Sunday, July 23) that environmental non governmental organisations (NGOs) and environmentalists are “hugely supportive” of farmers in Ireland.
Fogarty said: “This is kind of hard for farmers to hear but if we criticise farming we’re told we’re being anti-farmer and in our mind we are making a very clear distinction between criticising policies or criticising industry leaders and not criticising farmers.
“But those lines are well blurred now and any kind of criticism we make is seen as being directed at farmers and what has happened is that a lot of environmentalists, I think, have kind of censored themselves over the years because basically they don’t want to be seen to be criticising farmers.
“But it has also then prevented them from making criticism that need to be made and absolutely have to be made.
“I am really uncomfortable with the fact that farmers think I’m anti-farming but I also feel I am just have to live with that because I feel we have to be able to criticise the policies and the leadership and the political decisions that go into farming.”
Blog
Fogarty confirmed that he had resigned from the IWT this weekend following the organisation’s decision to edit a blog – “Drift of the farm orgs” – which he had written and which had been published on IWT’s website on July 15.
He was one of the organisation’s high profile members and had represented the IWT as an observer at the COP15 meeting in Canada last December.
In the blog Fogarty had originally claimed that Irish farm organisations were “lurching to the far right” and also referenced the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) in the blog.
He told Agriland that the IWT had changed his original blog and that he “wasn’t part of the decision making process” in relation to that.
Fogarty also said that it was the organisation’s right to “control” what is on its website but he highlighted that the blog in question had been “online for nearly a week and it only became an issue when the IFA made a complaint”.
The environmental scientist, who had been with the organisation for more 20 years in total, both as a volunteer and staff member, said he was “disappointed” with the current situation but that it “was not a disaster”.
The edited version of the blog was available to read on the IWT’s website today.
Meanwhile in a statement the IFA said it was seeking a meeting with the board of the IWT “to discuss the article and why it was allowed to remain in the public domain for almost a week”.
It noted the “intervention” by the board of the IWT, following correspondence from the IFA, to “remove certain defamatory comments” and said that it believed that “much of what remains in that article is still extremely divisive”.
“Irish farmland is a significant reservoir of biodiversity with on average 12-14% of farms providing space for nature.
“This is much higher than the European Union average,” the IFA stated.
Future of farming
Fogarty has warned that it is important that different voices continue to be heard when it comes to the future of farming.
“There’s absolutely nobody in the environmental NGO sector in Ireland campaigning to end farming, I would say most of the E-NGOs in Ireland campaign for better payments for farmers to do things in a nature friendly way.
“But it’s easier to dismiss your opponents by saying you’re anti-farming because then you don’t have to engage in the substance of the debate.
“The system we have at the moment is controlled by a very small number of people – the co-ops, the supermarkets, the people in the Department of Agriculture, the minister, Teagasc and the farming organisations and if you’re outside of that circle nobody is interested in what you have to say,” he added.