A leading community activist has condemned as
‘environmental and health vandalism’ the proposals by Galway city council to advocate
the construction of buildings and a road through the main urban parks as a
betrayal of the hundreds of dedicated residents, scientists, teachers and youth
who regularly give their time, energies and ideas to developing and maintaining
the local authority’s woods, parks and green spaces for the benefit of the general
public.
According to Brendan Smith of the Terryland
Forest Alliance, “There is a deep sense of shock and a feeling of betrayal amongst
Galway’s army of environmental volunteers as we witness council officials undertaking
a complete U-turn on long standing environmental policies, which will have
serious negative consequences on people’s health, on air quality, on the
education of our children, on the county’s commitment to combat global climate
change and which will led to the destruction of sensitive wildlife corridors that
have taken decades to nurture. We are calling on citizens and their elected
representatives to save our city from what can only be described as
institutional environmental and health vandalism and are hosting a public
meeting on this issue at 7.30pm on Thursday November 24th in the Maldron Hotel near the Kirwan Roundabout on the Headford Road.”
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| Community made wildflower meadow in Terryland Forest Park, Summer 2916 |
In the last few weeks, we have been
informed by City Hall that the Terryland Forest Park multi-sectoral steering
committee that includes NUI Galway, GMIT, An Taisce, HSE, schools and
communities can no longer met due to budgetary restrictions; that a road will
be built through the same forest park; that an ancient meadow in Merlin Woods will
be bulldozed to make way for a hospice in spite of suitable alterative sites
existing nearby; that the council propose to make it illegal for children to climb
trees and that the number of workers in park maintenance are being reduced.
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| 2008: 10,000+ people sign petition which successfully stopped a road being built through Terryland Forest Park |
It is only a few years ago that a petition
signed by over 10,000 Galwegians stopped a road being built through Terryland
Forest Park, a park referred too as the “People’s Park” as most of its 100,000
trees were planted by the people of the city from March 2000 onwards. The
council are ignoring the reasons why people did so. For the latest scientific research
shows the fundamental importance of trees and nature to people’s well being,
which is why the next generation of cities across the world are integrating
parks, food gardens and forests into their urban infrastructures. Ireland has
the highest rate of obesity and weight excess in Europe whilst over 20% of our
young people suffer from some form of mental health disorder, much of which can
stem from what is known as Nature Deficit Disorder(NDD). Experiencing the clean air as well as
the calming and stimulation effect of the ‘Great Outdoors’ is now being
promoted by the medical profession worldwide as an alternative to the costly drugs
and pill culture.
Hence for the sake of our citizens, our future
generations and our planet the council’s retrograde steps to design out biodiversity
must be halted.
These brutal actions make a mockery of the
city being declared a green capital of Europe as the EU Green Leaf City 2017. Projects
involving community volunteers played a key role in securing this international
accolade. Activists were therefore hoping that the city’s new found international
eco-status would led to significant investment and progress being made in
promoting greater public access to parks; in overcoming anti-social activity
such as illegal dumping and bush drinking in bogs, parks and woodlands; in finally
moving forward on the Galway city-Clifden Greenway and in supporting park-based
nature learning initiatives for children.
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| The Outdoor Classroom |
Over the last year, scientists, technologists, teachers,
health experts and environmentalists have begun working together to commence
the process of transforming Terryland into a huge Outdoor Classroom and Outdoor
Laboratory for our educational institutions that could also provide major
tourist benefit.
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| Traditional Mowing of widlflower meadow in Terryland Forest Park |
Heritage enthusiasts have started to use it as a learning hub
for traditional rural skills and crafts including the creation of native
wildflower meadows where the grass is mowed by using hand held scythes,
scarecrow-making events for children, and the introduction of horse drawn ploughing
into the park’s organic garden.
Yet we are now faced with the extraordinary
situation that the council has decided that Galway’s communities can no longer
be involved in developing a park that they actually founded. This decision is
the antithesis of civic engagement, a cornerstone of the city’s development strategy.
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| Community Tree Planting |
Hence there is a genuine fear that the
Green Leaf award could become nothing more than mere window dressing, a title
without substance, a Greenwash. The council authorities are it seems treating forests
and parks as a reserve land bank to be chipped away when land is needed to be
cemented and tarmaced over. Not for nothing is Terryland officially recognised as
the ‘Lungs of the City’; its nearly 100,000 trees that were mostly planted by
the people of Galway since 2000 provide the oxygen needs of up to 400,000
people, absorb over a decade 3,800 metric tons of the carbon dioxide gas that
is contributing to global warming and provide €4.64 billion worth of air pollution control over 50 years. This
park, stretching from the wetlands of the Corrib along the Dyke Road to the
farmlands of Castlegar, has the potential to be even important to Galway than
the Phoenix Park is to Dublin. But it is been denied the public resources that
it so urgently needs whilst funds and support from steering committee members are
being ignored.
We as concerned citizens see ourselves as
the defenders of the council’s own recreational, health, community and environmental
policies. We are not going to let officialdom destroy our precious life-giving wildlife
habitats and green spaces.
The community and environmental sector
should once again be viewed as equal partners whose actions over the years have
brought many benefits to the quality of life in the city, including stopping
the construction of a giant municipal incinerator and its replacement by the
first three bin waste recycling system in Ireland as well as the introduction of
the country’s first cash-for-cans scheme.”
