Pressure increases on Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Charlie McConalogue to reduce the 500m hedgerow limit as protesters demand change outside Leinster House today (Wednesday, February 15).
In a letter to the minister, Hedgerows Ireland and environmental as well as farming groups called for an immediate reduction of the limit by which permission and an environmental impact assessment is needed to remove hedgerows.
The campaign has seen “amazing support” from farmers and from some farming groups, Hedgerows Ireland representative, Alan Moore said, telling Agriland that “farmers are with us”.
However, Moore and some TDs present at today’s protest agreed on the need to incentivise landowners and farmers to maintain quality hedgerows providing benefits for biodiversity and the environment.
“It seems to us that there is a small minority of large landowners, often investment-style landowners who are buying up land, removing all the internal hedges and they are not typical of most of the farmers who are really upset about what is going on,” Moore added.
The group representative believes the minister has the power to immediately change the “ridiculous” limit, which he said could have a positive effect on the “enormous removal” of 3,000km of hedgerows annually.
Despite “very positive engagement” with the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA), the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association (ICSA), and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), Moore believes more pro-active support is needed.
“Particularly in terms of carbon which is such a hot topic now.
“How on earth are we going to reach our 25% reduction in greenhouse gases if we continue to remove major carbon stores, in other words hedgerows? It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
Hedgerow protest
Calling for the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) payment scheme to be revisited to encourage landowners to have bigger, wider and taller hedges, Moore said it “makes sense” to maintain hedgerows in anticipation of direct payments for sequestration.
Deputy Jackie Cahill, however, said that hedgerows have to be recognised as carbon sinks first with credit and payments for farmers.
“We’re not getting any credit for that and farmers find that extremely annoying and frustrating. If we are going to create habitats out of the hedgerows, we have to get credit for it.
“Farmers will go along with that but the problem with that is, if you have a hedgerow that’s three or five years old and you have to trim it and cut it, you have an awful lot of waste,” the deputy said.
Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, however, “doesn’t want us to be able to burn that waste”, he said calling for the right balance to be achieved.
Wicklow TD and Social Democrats spokesperson on climate and biodiversity, Jennifer Whitmore said hedgerows need to be an integral part of Ireland’s biodiversity.
“It’s like an artery that runs across the country providing shelter and transport ways for creatures and pollinators,” she said.