Are you concerned about the destruction of the natural world and climate change?

Who actually farms in a National Park??

Fire is mobile.

No sh1t.

So did it start outside or inside the park?

Time to bring back the wolves

Probably on the fringes of the NP but I had noticed a few sites of 'parties' in the laybys near Mangerton.

Signs of BBQs and campfires under the trees, and plenty bottles, cans and shyte left after them too.

There are no grazing rights within the NP itself. Parks and Wildlife expel any sheep they find. Carrauntoohill is privately owned.

Couple of interesting articles here regarding the regenerative agricultural method in Spain.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2021-07-29/southern-spains-green-belt-project-aims-stave-impending-desertification

Spain is quickly becoming a desert and an ecologist and farmer are trying an ambitious project to stave it off by planting a green belt across the south of the country. Aside from the green belt, the farmers are attempting to leave the areas between the vines and olive trees grow wild. The results being

• More water being captured and retained with less run-offs (less issues with droughts)
• Less Herbicides meaning insects which eat the larvae of pests are able to survive
• Less inputs in terms of fertilisers, fuel for ploughing etc
• Farmers can charge more for their produce as its easier to certify organic.

Even back then some knew the danger co2

If only, would be a lot cheaper than the BMW or Mercs politicians normally drive. In upfront costs, running costs, mileage claims and environmental cost

Of feed you to the pigs.

Look at the bright side you would help cut down the awful importation of foodstuffs for animals that you so detest.

BTW FYI I don't agree with industrialised pig farming.

You do know that sometimes fire is a natural occurring necessary thing.

Not saying in case of Kerry National Park, but the anti fire mindset most often for commerical reasons but also on behalf of some environmentalists often can do more harm than good in the long term and prevents a necessary natural lifecycle.

BTW some seem to play it that modern Irish farming is responsible for our low forestry when the damage was done hundreds of years ago.

We probably increased our forestry cover, albeit in quick growing non native varieties especially hated by the greens, over the last number of decades.

When you look at forest cover in lots of other countries it is due in no small part to huge landed estates that have had the wherewithal to leave land aside for trees (Britain, France, Italy) or in some countries just huge old forests that were never removed e.g Finland and Baltics.

According to kay burley on sky news this morning we have 11 years to save the planet. How the **** is she allowed to get away with broadcasting that scaremongering bullshit on live tv at 830 in the morning.

Forest cover by-in-large tends to line up with mountainous regions. If land can be farmed, it generally will be. Same is true of Spain/France/Italy. Valleys in between mountains tend to be farmed while the mountains are left to themselves. Mountains here are generally grazed.

I don't know if you are being sarcastic or not but to answer your question. No i did not read it.i still think kay burley shouldn't be spewing that nonsense on live tv though. She shouldn't be on tv full stop.

Well tbf to China they might not have a choice but to do something when half the country will be a desert and the other half underwater if this keeps up.

Actually not necessarily true of other countries.

You come across huge swaths of old forests in say France.

And they can be lots of trees in valleys like the Dordogne. Then again parts of it definitely not suited to modern agriculture.

Over in Baltics huge forests on perfectly flat land.

Ehh that would be the over abundance of deer.

And the deer herd has gotten so big they have long since spilled out of the national parks, especially so in Wicklow where farmers have hunters in every other week.

Normally think this is most stupid idea I ever heard, but slowly thinking the unforeseen consequences that eejit Ryan didn't think of might be actually best thing ever for our environment.

BTW I am talking about the Darwin award nominees that the wolves would dispense with would help lower the population.

Wicklow national park really is often just hilltops in places.

For instance Luq is not in National Park, one side of Scarr isn't, one side of Kippure isn't.

It is not a very nice contiguous area at all so what someone may think is Wicklow National Park is actually comonage, part of one of those big estates or plain old farmers land/bog.

You have areas of coillte forestry and military ranges in there as well.

And this was the area that plonker wanted to house wolves.

Oh dear god deliver us from fools.

Oh wait must think of wolves eating green hillwalkers and better still all those highly visible bicylers.

Yeah for wolves. Brilliant idea minister. Bravo.

Maintenance costs would be higher as tied to Tesla dealer, dont kid yourself, they'd be claiming for every unit of electricity used for charging and it'll be scrap long before the BMW and Mercedes,

There's no fixed servicing on a Tesla....fuel costs 80%less.

Have a look here for a comparison, see below for an example of far inferior BMW for example 🙂

I think agriculture is an easy scapegoat in this country. Yes it has intensified but us ordinary consumers have a part to play here and not out 100% blame on farmers and the large food companies. There is a lot of food wasting going on.Farm incomes and jobs in the agri food sector could be protected if we made better use of food and possibly reduce herd size at the same time. We all want the nice cuts of meet..no harm in that but think back 30/40 years ago we cosumed meat better. Its v rare now you hear oxtails been use or someone cooking heart, tongue liver etc. We produce a good bit of goats chesse, milk and yogurts here yet do not cosume goats meat. Considering we are now more multicultural and well travelled in Ireland now surely we should be able to be a bit more creative and adventurous with meat here. Same with fruit and veg waste. There is a lot of work going on behind the scenes in farming to reduce the carbon output which doesnt get enough attention, like the research of adding a type of seaweed to animal feeds to reduce gas etc.

We need to use our existing transport network better too. Too many rail lines in Ireland under performing due to proper lack of planning and investment which forces people into cars. Its easy to say o v low passengers numbers so its not viable on the Ballybrophy to Limerick line for example. In reality in its current formation its not user friendly. Its painfully slow and the train timetable does not make it a option for those commuting to work in limerick. Also a examination of stops along the route and possible a new stop near thomand park would make it attractive for students in LIT etc and UL are developing a site in the city centre which would make the line more attractive if the service was timetabled correctly. Same with limerick ennis line if that was anywhere else in Europe you would have a stop on that line where you change for shannon going through the industrial estate and onto the airport

Also I dont get the big attraction of data centres popping up around the country. Once up and running they provide little employment but are massive drain on our electricity supply. Data centres are grand in the likes of Iceland where they tap into the natural geothermal energy supply there.. also on a global scale noone seems to want to address the elephant in the room that are batteries from electric cars wether its the environmental impact of the mining of components to make them or at the end of their life the disposal of them. Its like the west doesnt care as its the 3rd world suffering the local impacts

Its easy to finger point at India, China & US but change has to start somewhere even if its little changes here in Ireland. The consumerism of society is the environments best enemy. That defo stood out to be during lockdown. Most of the clothes i bought in last 18 months was when i needed maternity clothes. Up to that point i bought very little in the way of clothes. Working from home wore out older clothes until til became rags. Then some of those rags became good dusters instead of buying cloths for cleaning in the supermarket.Meant got more wear out of things that i would otherwise and my wallet was happier for it too