Join us this Saturday 29th July in MacNamara’s, Killaneena, East Clare for what will be a fantastic night of entertainment, in the realm of, “The Great Forest of Aughty”, restoration project. Kicking off at 8 pm, with the amazing film, “Call of the Forest”, by the visionary Diana Beresford Kroeger. Followed by well known Reggae selectors, Jason Rootical Soundsystem supported by Saoirse Sounds.
The Woodland League launched a new Native Trees initiative on Tuesday 7th March, during National Tree Week. A native tree seed box, a “Forest in a Box”, was presented to Brigit’s Hearth pre-school in Tuamgraney Co. Clare. The box uses a copy of the natural forest floor of leaf litter to start the trees off, the sides creating shade to encourage the trees to reach for the light with fine mesh across the bottom and the top lid to protect the seeds from being eaten, so increasing their chances of survival by 90% or more. Each one metre by one metre seed box is capable of providing approximately 200 healthy native trees for planting out every two years.
We can all agree there is a need now to find wise long term solutions to fix flooding, one part of this solution is to work with nature, farmers, and local communities to restore our degraded uplands, rivers, streams, wetlands and flood plains so that they can perform their natural regulatory function to their optimum capacity.
“By virtue of cooling the air and spraying the sky and multiplying the clouds trees exert considerable influence upon the fall and distribution of rain; by virtue of sponging the earth around their feet they enormously influence the behaviour of floods, the discipline of rivers, the supply of springs, the health of fish… Forests are so much more than meets the eye. They are fountains. They are oceans. They are pipes. They are dams. Their work ramifies through the whole economy of nature.”
From The Triumph of the Tree by John Stewart Collis
The Woodland League are calling for a complete ban on the use of cypermethrin and glyphosate by Coillte in public forests, please support this important call. We believe that the use of these hazardous chemicals poses a serious health hazard. We also fail to see how the use of these dangerous poisons can be seen to be compatible with Sustainable Forest Management, which Coillte claim to practise and which is supported by their use of the FSC ecolabel.
The Environmental Pillar are calling for an end to the use of the hazardous chemical Cypermethrin in Irish forests. This chemical which kills insects is being used in significant quantities over a large area of land, some 50,000 ha, in an attempt to protect the non-native spruce and pine from pests.
Andrew St. Ledger talks to Noel McGuinness on Northside Today about the new forestry plan that has been approved by the EU and says that the plan fails to resolve serious environmental issues with the Irish Forestry model.
New forestry plan approved by EU has not addressed significant environmental issues with Irish forests and is a missed opportunity. Minister Tom Hayes yesterday announced the approval of the new forestry programme by the EU but environmental groups claim the plan fails to resolve serious environmental issues with the Irish forestry model.
The Woodland League would like to propose that a plan be made to restore the remnant shreds of what was once a great oak forest known as the Great Forest of Aughty.
New Perspectives on Irish History is a brand new 8 part radio series devised by John Haughton, which takes a unique look at how our ancestors viewed their natural environment and how different periods of history co-existed with the natural environment of our island. Programme 1 features interviews with Andrew St. Ledger of the Woodland League and Lord Ross of Birr Castle, as well as voxpops with secondary school children.
Dedicated to restoring the relationship between people and their native woodlands
