Don't Sully our Green Standing Now

Call for greater investment in green spaces after city park wins another major national environmental award

Many thanks to the Galway City Tribune for the extensive coverage earlier this month of the success of Terryland Forest Park in winning the RDS national Community Woodland Award, one of many accolades we have won which has helped earn Galway city a reputation for protecting its biodiversity and natural environment. See photo.

The Tuatha volunteers and the parks staff of City Hall working together have indeed a lot to be proud of in developing the forest park over many years as an Outdoor Classroom, Outdoor Lab, Outdoor Gym, as a eco-tourism destination, as a major 'carbon sink' and as an urban wildlife sanctuary.

But we had to use the opportunity of the media exposure to highlight our deep concerns over the deterioration now being experienced in biodiversity protection not just in Terryland but also in Shantalla and Merlin Woods.

It is not something that we ever expected to happen.

For in November our Tuatha volunteers along with other local environmental organisations were delighted to be part of the public launch by Galway City Council of the Galway City Biodiversity Action Plan. This plan included commitments “to protect, restore and celebrate the biodiversity that sustains us” especially through those “green and blue spaces that are not only home to a remarkable diversity of species but are essential to our health, our climate resilience and our shared sense of place.”

But the council now seems to be undermining these committments.

We have been expressing our frustrations- through meetings with Mayor Helen Ogbu and council staff from multiple departments as well as the River Basin Management Service over the last few months- on the lack of progress over problems that have been appearing recently in the Terryland Forest Park which are undermining public safety and the park's fragile biodiversity as well as sapping the morale of our fantastic volunteers. These include an upsurge in anti-social activity within certain areas of the park which is eliminating habitats, a deliberate destruction of public property such as fencing and in the uprooting the trees that the people of Galway of all ages planted over the decades. There is also a dramatic rise in silt and vegetation across the Terryland River that is decreasing water flow and as a home for aquatic wildlife. We are also worried about the lack of progress in installing pedestrian road crossings connecting sections of the park.

So we have written to all councillors requesting them to visit the Terryland Forest Park this month to review both the successes achieved and the issues that need to be faced up to and be solved including if necessary the passing of new byelaws.

In a time of a growing human-made interlinked global Climate and Biodiversity Crises, our woodlands and parks are needed more than ever.