Demands for group to protect unique natural habitat
The cutting of trees by the ESB, majority owner of the Special Area of Conservation near Macroom, was carried out due to safety concerns at fallen trees and branches in the aftermath of Storm Ophelia.
Access to the Gearagh, via a public walkway, has been closed this week while the ESB undertakes “additional remedial works on the surface of the walkway and also additional pruning which will aid natural regeneration of the trees”.
But the extent of the original work and crude manner in which trees were cut has led to calls for an apology from the semi-state body.
“This is a shocking assault on Irish nature, a ‘hell’s garden’,” said local environmentalist Ted Cook.
“This behaviour is directly in breach of the 1979 Wild Birds Directive and the Habitats Directive of 1992 and the Wildlife Amendment Act of 2000 and 2011 Habitats Regulations. This is blatant; this is flagrant, and to quote Yeats, ‘no knave brought to book’.
“We need an apology by the ESB and the minister in charge of natural resources, not only to the Macroom community but to all of the many thousands of visitors — people coming to study the freshwater pearl mussels, the freshwater sponge - and an undertaking that we will never again see any such violence visited upon a nature refuge.”
Sinn Féin MEP Liadh Ní Riada, who helped bring the protection of the Gearagh to the attention of the European Parliament, described the damage as “horrifying”.
“I can understand that they had to take down trees that were maybe endangering people’s lives,” she said. “I visited it after the job was done and I have to say I was appalled: the trees were butchered.”
She called for action to ensure the post-glacial alluvial forest is not only properly protected in the future, but developed into a tourist attraction on the scale of the Burren in Co Clare.
Having supported Macroom ecologist Kevin Corcoran’s appearance before the European Parliament’s Petitions Committee in 2016 in which he detailed the threats to the Gearagh, she said the ESB would be called to appear before this committee regarding a management plan for the amenity.
“I’m going to be lobbying [the committee] and I’m going to be saying to them, make sure that we hold these people accountable and that they look at the benefits and the potential that exists,” said Ms Ní Riada .
She added that a steering group should be established to include ESB management, ecologists, local farmers, and the National Parks and Wildlife Service, to implement a management plan.
“Can we come up with an overall management plan that’s beneficial to the area, that nurtures the Gearagh and that leaves it safe for future generations, but that it becomes a key eco-tourist site,” she said.
