We are asking all lovers of nature and of community
to join volunteers at 10am on this Saturday Dec 8th from the Quincentenary
Bridge entrance to take part in a significant cleanup in Terryland Forest Park that we
hope will highlight the unacceptable increased levels of anti-social behaviour occurring
there over the last few months particularly in terms of litter and therefore
the critical need for Galway City Council to follow the lead of other cities in
appointing full-time parks’ grounds staff.
Working with community volunteers and
implementing an ‘Adopt a Patch’ scheme with local residents and businesses that
we will launch next month, we feel that this new suggested policy change by
City Hall could have a major positive impact on reclaiming the park for the
people of Galway in order to fulfil its official designation as the “People’s
Park” and the “Lungs of the City” as well as a urban wildlife sanctuary. Terryland has the potential to become a major green regional
hub linking the Connemara Greenway over a new pedestrian bridge along the old
railway pillars, to the Corrib waterways and to a large untapped
walking/cycling ‘boreen’ network on the north and east sides of the city.
Sadly years of council neglect due to a
shrinking budget from government and other factors is destroying our city’s green spaces
particularly in relation to Terryland Forest Park, a green facility that its
founders in 1996 had hoped would become the equivalent of the Phoenix Park of
Galway.
A dedicated team of volunteers from all
walks of life have done so much over the last few years to successfully develop
this natural heritage zone as an Outdoor Classroom for local schools; an
Outdoor Laboratory for third level science research; a major ecological
corridor and sanctuary for wildlife that research has shown contains at least
350 species; and a landscape for revitalising rural heritage skills and organic
farming. But sadly the absence of on-the-ground park wardens and maintenance
staff has led to an epidemic of litter and a surge in vandalism that is transforming
Terryland and other public parks into ‘No Go Zones’ for the public as well as negatively
impacting on the park’s biodiversity.
Sadly the visitor is now greeted with carcasses
of blackened burnt tree trunks on abandoned night-time campfires; the wanton
destruction of picnic benches; paint-peeled park seating; mounds of alcohol bottles/cans
lying beside outdoor exercise equipment; overflowing uncollected ugly council blackbags
beside every seat which are ripped open with their contents covering woodlands and
killing wildlife in the process; the detritus of heroin drug use in the form of
used needles and tin foil scattered across pathways; gates and boundary fences
rotting away; a Terryland river that is being choked to death by nitrates and many
large empty display boards deprived of their lovingly researched and
artistically drawn biodiversity information signage that have been inexplicably
kept for years in cold storage by the council. This sorry state of affairs is destroying the morale of many
of those who have given thousands of hours free of charge since March 2000 to
plant tens of thousands of trees, to develop a network of wildflower bee haven
meadows, to carve Celtic art into large stones in order to form a unique heritage
trail and to install multiple bat boxes. Many veteran volunteers of all ages have
understandingly recently given up collecting rubbish monthly when they see no
reciprocal council system in place to ensure regular litter picking and
bench/fence/seating maintenance.
This is a nightmare scenario to the
visionaries drawn from council staff, politicians, state agencies, academia,
local communities, schools and the environmental movement who came together in
the 1990s to designate 180 acres of fields to develop a wonderful mosaic of
parklands, farmland, wetlands, waterways, and woods that would serve the
leisure needs of Galwegians of all ages as well as providing a ‘wildlife
corridor’ linking the Corrib waterways to the farmlands of east Galway via the
city. Even then they understood
the importance of easy access to natural land/waterscapes for people’s physical
and mental health as well in benefiting children’s learning experiences through
contact with Nature. Since then the importance of forestry in combating Climate
Change, maintaining soil fertility
and structure as well as filtering toxic car emissions out of the atmosphere has
being scientifically proven.
So we have written to Mayor McNelis, a great
friend of the Terryland Forest Park, for his help in re-establishing the great
sense of unity of purpose that existed when the park opened on a Sunday in
March 2000 as c3,500 people turned up to plant an entire urban woodland in the
heart of the city. We have asked him to organise a meeting of community activists
with the CEO, officials, and councillors of Galway city council around our key
demands of the reconvening of the park’s multi-sectoral steering committee
which was promised last February by CEO Brendan McGrath; to ring-fence the
€50,000 allocated in last year’s council budget towards developing a Management
Plan or Terryland park/river that
was supposed to happen in 2018 and has not; to appoint a city Biodiversity
Officer as is the case in Dublin; to consider building ‘green bridges’ to
connect the different parts of the park separated by roads; and finally to appoint full time wardens and
operative staff for this and other parks. The latter is crucial if we are to
restore public confidence in Terryland. Not having park ground staff is ludicrous.
For instance St Stephen’s Green and Phoenix Park would degenerate into a dangerous
wasteland within weeks if Dublin City Council withdrew staff from its
grounds.
In February, doctors, teachers, students, scientists,
resident associations, urban farmers, environmentalists, state agency
representatives, politicians, artists and others will come together to launch
the campaign for Galway to become Ireland’s first ‘National Park City’. We earnestly
wish City Hall to be part of this initiative. Hence we hope their actions on
Terryland Forest Park over the next month will make the council worthy partners
in this project.
