3000 km of hedgerow destroyed per year

Part of the reason for that is that hedges don't really add anything to a crop, but they can be valuable to animals for shelter. In addition, hedges were also somewhat "free fencing" in terms of keeping livestock in. So traditionally, tillage farms would have been faster to level ditches and remove hedges.

Most of that would have been done decades ago for modernisation reasons. I think there is a reference point now of about 2009, after which a hedge cannot be removed. There is an allowance which can be planted, but it has to be planted in advance.

The article is actually very irresponsible. They are trying to give the sensationalist impression that anyone can just go out and unilaterally remove 500m of hedges. That can easily backfire as some people who have hedges might believe that, and think they are ok if they go out and bulldoze 500m tomorrow with zero mitigation. The person who does it will be breaking the law, and will likely be fined for it, but the hedges will have been destroyed as a result of being "tricked" by those who claim to want to protect them.................

Well done.Pity there's not many more like you.

It was something quick and easy to scale it to but that’s a good observation.

Here you go. Land currently for sale in Ireland. Put your money where your mouth is and buy some and fill it full of trees and bushes if you want.

Intense agricultural productivity > hedgerow for hedgerows sake.

Why 50k? There are plenty of options on there for less than that. You can't take it with you when you die. So why not put your money where your mouth is if it actually means that much to you

If you can't take it with you when you die why destroy it?

Just seems silly to throw out a rehash of 'if you don't like it leave' levels of argument. As though changing public policy to protect more hedgerows is out of the question.

Oh alright then. Seemed like a rather hostile suggestion, like we should shut down this conversation until they've bought new acreage planted some bushes for the finches.

No. It's just a fair point. It would be a bit hypocritical to be calling on others to make changes to their property at their expense if you aren't willing to make any contribution at your own expense.

I'd say the average person reading this thread has a semi-detached house with a little back and front garden in an area which was little fields 50+ years ago. Many of said field boundaries could have been kept intact should the people be willing to forgo their gardens and live in high-rises such as what was built in Ballymun. If you are worried about hedgerows, and you don't want to buy land to plant some, then at least don't be contributing to the demand for urban sprawl by purchasing such properties. There would be far less concrete and tarmac and massive roads and all the associated pollution.

I don't know what you are going on about. If a block of land comes up for sale, I can buy it or you can buy it. If I buy it, then I can't. by law, just cut down any hedgerows in it. That has been made clear to everyone on the thread (sensationalist articles notwithstanding). And nor would I have any interest in doing so. I'm not talking about removing hedgerows. I'm talking about those who apparently would like to direct that I plant more.

If you want the land to be used for new hedgerows to be planted all over on it then you buy it. You don't have the right to force me to plant anything I don't want to. Put your own money into the pot if you want to do that.

You can vote all you like in your "democracy" to say I have to plant more hedges. I'm not going to give a bollix about your vote because we have property rights here. If you want more hedges, buy a bit of land and plant all the briars and blackthorn and anything else you want on it. Get together with your buddies and pool your finances and do like the yank fella is doing out in Dunsany if you want. Your choice. If you are too mean to spend your own money to achieve something you say that you would like, then don't. But don't think you can spend mine to do it.

Or just do like many people do and buy your semi-detached, or detached, house out in the "suburbs" where once-nice fields and hedges are now covered in tar and concrete so that you can have the personal space you think you deserve, and take your few transatlantic flights a year and drive your polluting car everywhere and try to assuage any guilty feeling by pointing at the people who are the only ones actually minding the environment and its heritage

I did make a post about this point already didn't I.

Ranting up the wrong tree.

Here in West Cork over the last nearly fourty years there has been a lot of ditches with the hedgerows removed, how much was replanted : zero.

Over the road from us in 1986 there were six fields, now a single ten acre field. The farmers increase the field size to make it easier to turn the increasingly larger silage cutters, where would they replant a hedge, across the middle of another field, hardly.

Progress I suppose & before anyone comments, on our five acres we have planted hundreds of trees & hedging, native species largely, our fields teem with birds & wildlife.

Go to the Chilterns near London, or the Cotswolds, or even when you're flying into Gatwick it's amazing how much more wooded areas there are than Ireland, and it's not sitka spruce, natural woodland. They're only a couple of % higher than Ireland for forest cover overall, but 9% of our 11% forest coverage are pine plantations, you see a lot more natural woodlands in Britain. Wales I noticed is the same, the train from London to Holyhead is an eye-opener and makes you realise how little nature we have in Ireland.