A hedge well worth investing in

ONE of the ironies of life is that, sometimes, those responsible for protecting our environment are the very people that help destroy it.

How often, for instance, do we see county councils and land owners ruin hedges and other features of the landscape?

The Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT) is currently highlighting the issue of illegal hedgerow cutting that typically starts around now and continues well into the summer months. Unless for reasons of health and safety, this activity is in breach of the Wildlife Act which bans hedge cutting from March 1 to August 31.

Some councils and land managers seem only to address the issue of hedge cutting during these months. Either they are unaware they are breaking the law and causing tremendous environmental damage, or they simply don’t care.

Since Ireland’s great forests were cut down in the Middle Ages, the only natural features in many parts of the countryside are the hedgerows. Without them, as in much of Britain and mainland Europe, the landscape would be robbed of its wild beauty and be left bare and barren. Our hedgerows support a wealth of species that once found a home in the oak forests, including badgers, owls, hedgehogs, stoats, blackbirds and innumerable plants, butterflies and other insects. As well as being an invaluable reserve for much of our wildlife, hedgerows provide pollinators, clean the air, define the landscape and store carbon. By holding back the flow of water off the land, they can also alleviate flooding. And is not the early flowering of summer on the hedges, which illuminates the countryside in May, something to lift the heart in depressed times?! In spite of all these benefits, the Irish hedgerow is suffering “death by a thousand cuts”, IWT chairperson Padraic Fogarty says.

Environment Minister John Gormley has promised to prosecute those found breaking the law, including local authorities. The IWT is also running a campaign to report all instances of hedge cutting between now and the end of August to Mr Gormley’s office, as well as the relevant local authority and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Despite large-scale destruction of hedgerows to make away for new farming practices, roads, housing and shopping developments, we are told awareness of the importance of hedges among farmers has increased. That results from the introduction of the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) which offers annual payments to farmers to conserve hedges and other rural features.

Almost 30 mammals, and up to nine species of bats live in, or near, our hedgerow while insects found there provide food for birds. Song thrushes and blackbirds eat earthworms, slugs and snails around the hedge, while the autumn berry crops are food for yellowhammers, bullfinches, chaffinches and winter visitors such as fieldfares and redwings.

Few of these birds could survive in numbers in the countryside without the hedgerow harvest of insects, seeds and berries. Hedgerows also provide valuable nesting space and song posts for our breeding birds, as is so clearly evident at this time of year.

The IWT are appealing to the public to report illegal hedge-cutting by logging onto www.iwt.ie or emailing: [e-mail] and sending the date, time and location of the incident and, where possible, a photograph and name of person or organisation involved.

Still on outdoor matters, a new series of Living the Wildlife returns to our TV screens, with Colin Stafford-Johnson on a journey of discovery across Ireland. The first programme goes out on RTÉ One at 7pm tomorrow.

As an Emmy-award winning wildlife cameraman, Stafford-Johnson has travelled the world filming the strange and the exotic, but has now returned home to document the nature that inspired him throughout his childhood.

He reflects on the arrival of Ireland’s newest mammal, the greater white-toothed shrew, wonders at the incredible singing of humpback whales and reports on the mysterious disappearance of the fresh water eel.

Stafford-Johnson also stakes out the Waterford Wood to get a glimpse of the elusive pine marten and celebrates the return of the red squirrel to the Beleek Woods, in Co Mayo.

With a 1,400km coastline, Ireland boasts a rich assortment of seabird life and the first episode of the series is focussed on coastal birds.