Consensus on hedge management:

We’ve been active in contributing to a very welcome joint initiative between Teagasc and the Heritage Council to forge updated guidelines for hedgerow management. This is an ongoing project following a series of roadshows and webinars this summer with input from interested groups and experts. Teagasc will convene an in person forum of stakeholders during the coming winter to pool knowledge and hopefully reach an agreed guideline document.

Emerging themes from the discussions to date are that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’ when it comes to hedge management methods. A range of different options are available depending on the type of hedge, the location and other variables.  Bigger is definitely better in terms of hedge size for all of the service provided by hedges, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity. Watch this space for more details of the hedge management forum.

Invitation to the President’s Garden Party

We were honoured to get the invite to the Aras to attend President Higgins’ Garden Party in June entitled ‘Cherishing our Biodiversity and Sustainability. This proved to be a great networking event for the team with new contacts made and plans laid! Michael D was laid low with a bug but Sabina delivered his rousing speech: ‘I recognize your work, acknowledge it and salute you,’ she said on his behalf.

Michael Hickey, Dermot Grogan and Alan Moore at the Aras.

Farm shows:

We continued our work attending farm shows this year including the wonderful Clonmel Show in July where our members helped children identify common hedgerow plants and flowers and take part in our annual hedgerow quiz (prize is a pair of high powered Opticron binoculars: winner will be announced soon!).

Presentations:

Alan was a guest speaker at the Waterford Harvest Festival recently and addressed an audience of beekeepers on the topic  ‘Why our hedgerows matter.’

Campaigns:

Our campaigning work continues with a special emphasis at the moment on stopping the unnecessary destruction of urban hedgerows. Despite the recognition of the importance of hedgerows in county development plans and other official documents, we are continuing to see planning permission granted for business and residential developments without adequate consideration for existing trees and hedgerows. Some examples:

• We are supporting a residents group in Kildare town where 200 metres of mature roadside hedgerow is zoned for removal despite the clear benefits of this wonderful landscape feature towards the wellbeing of residents of a proposed housing development.
• We are supporting a residents group in Phibsboro in Dublin who are requesting that Dublin City Council revisit their plans for Phase 4 of the Greenway along the Royal Canal. The plans involve the removal of hedgerow and narrowing of the canal. We agree with the group  that the plans are over engineered and should be adapted to accommodate nature.
• We are supporting a group of residents in Bray Co. Wicklow who are concerned that plans for a much needed skatepark fail to recognize the value of the mature hedgerows at the site and cannot understand why a full environmental assessment was not carried out in this case.

Hedgerow appreciation walk led by Hedgerows Ireland along the Royal Canal in September

Agriculture

We are also continuing to challenge the practice of some investment style landowners who are purchasing family farms and routinely removing most or all internal hedgerows to pursue industrial farming practices which fail to recognize the multiple benefits of hedgerows. We were pleased that the Irish Farmers Journal picked up on the issue in March this year.