9 September 1999 Edition
Conservation clause may save Glen
BY ROBERT ALLEN
It is not progress we must halt - it is humanity's belief that every other species on this planet exists for our benefit and for us to exploit any way we like. Until we all begin to realise that this is the only planet we live on and everything we do to it we do to ourselves we are destined to go the same way as the dinosaurs.
DECISIVE ACTION by the vigil keepers and supporters of the Glen of the Downs road protest thwarted a raid by chainsaw-wielding employees of Wicklow County Council over the last weekend of August.
On Friday, 27 August, the campaign's solicitor received a fax indicating that, three days earlier, Wicklow County Council had obtained the necessary legal and state clearance to evict the vigil keepers and start cutting - despite the official notification of the Glen as a proposed Special Area of Conservation (SAC), which is a designation under the EU Habitats Directive. Sunday was believed to be the day. By dawn that morning, about 60 people had gathered to defend the trees.
No chainsaws, Gardaí nor council officials and workers appeared, to the relief of the Glen community. Throughout the day, most of the supporters dispersed, but 15 people remained in the woods to maintain the vigil.
An e-mail network informed supporters of developments as messages of support for the campaign poured in from around the country and throughout the globe. The Glen has been occupied for over two years by people desperate to prevent the cutting of this beautiful broad leaved forest in north County Wicklow - between the Sugar Loaf mountains - on the commercial artery that links Larne in the North with Rosslare in the South. The council wants to convert the existing two-lane road into a four-lane highway. The construction would destroy 1,700 trees, the Glen's delicate eco-system would be irreversibly damaged.
Following a High Court hearing earlier in the year, undertakings restraining Wicklow County Council from felling the trees and the Glen community from entering the cut zone were lifted. An appeal to the Supreme Court was lodged over the interpretation of the Wildlife Act. Wicklow believed they could go ahead without waiting for a court date.
Throughout the weekend, activists arrived with music, food and shelter, preparing to continue the campaign. Many activists were surprised that the council would act before the Supreme Court had finished its deliberations. A crew of determined campaigners quickly assembled to mobilise the defences that were prepared long ago in advance of the inevitable arrival of the yellow-jacketed council workers.
By Monday, when it was obvious that the council were not sending in the chainsaws, the campaign legal team went back to court and secured a hearing before the Supreme Court last Friday. The council admitted that it intended to go into the Glen on Sunday, 29 August. Wicklow subsequently gave an undertaking that they would wait until the Supreme Court hearing which has been set for 19 October.
It will now be up to the Supreme Court to interpret European law in what may be seen as a precedent in domestic law. As a consequence of the proposed SAC designation, the Glen is now protected under European law. Unfortunately for those who want to see the Glen remain intact, 26-County courts are not willing to enforce European law. To make matters more complicated, there is a loophole which would allow the state and Wicklow to remove the trees - if they can argue there are ``imperative reasons of over-riding public interest including those of a social or economic nature''. Under the Habitats Directive, member states are required to ensure that SACs are protected. We will now have to wait until October to see whether the Glen of the Downs becomes the first successful anti-road protest in Europe.
In the meantime, supporters of the Glen are intensifying their efforts to highlight the issues that characterise the protest. Despite public support for the campaign, the mainstream media has been feeding negative information on the campaign, to the extent that people are asking what it is all about. What's the point of protecting a few trees? Sure isn't the road at the Glen a bottleneck? Anyway you can't halt progress, can you?
At the local level, the destruction of 1,700 trees would appear to be nothing out of the ordinary. Sure can't they be replaced? Well they can - once the chainsaws have reduced the existing trees to sawdust and furniture and fuel and paper products and tarmac has covered the land they grew on - somewhere else! What cannot be replaced is the delicate eco-system in the Glen of the Downs. The destruction by the construction crews will forever change the Glen - and eventually the entire woodland will die out. It might take 10 years. It might take 20, but it will happen.
Both the 26-County state and Wicklow County Council know this. The council's consultants told them this. Their engineers didn't lie either. ``You can't build a road without causing destruction,'' their chief engineer said two years ago.
But even this is not the point. It is not progress we must halt - it is humanity's belief that every other species on this planet exists for our benefit and for us to exploit any way we like. Until we all begin to realise that this is the only planet we live on and everything we do to it we do to ourselves we are destined to go the same way as the dinosaurs.
Instead, those who proclaim these realities are marginalised, victimised and criminalised. The vigil keepers at the Glen of the Downs have been called criminals. And when some of these so-called `eco-warriors' get angry about what is happening, they are told they are mad, bad and dangerous to society. It's time we got our priorities right.
The campaign to save the Glen has caught the imagination of the Irish people. Felling the trees would be a public relations disaster for Wicklow County Council. Whether or not the campaign is ultimately successful in stopping the road, it has successfully opened a national debate on the sacrifices made in the name of the progress in Celtic Tiger Ireland.
It is not progress we must halt - it is humanity's belief that every other species on this planet exists for our benefit and for us to exploit any way we like. Until we all begin to realise that this is the only planet we live on and everything we do to it we do to ourselves we are destined to go the same way as the dinosaurs.
DECISIVE ACTION by the vigil keepers and supporters of the Glen of the Downs road protest thwarted a raid by chainsaw-wielding employees of Wicklow County Council over the last weekend of August.
On Friday, 27 August, the campaign's solicitor received a fax indicating that, three days earlier, Wicklow County Council had obtained the necessary legal and state clearance to evict the vigil keepers and start cutting - despite the official notification of the Glen as a proposed Special Area of Conservation (SAC), which is a designation under the EU Habitats Directive. Sunday was believed to be the day. By dawn that morning, about 60 people had gathered to defend the trees.
No chainsaws, Gardaí nor council officials and workers appeared, to the relief of the Glen community. Throughout the day, most of the supporters dispersed, but 15 people remained in the woods to maintain the vigil.
An e-mail network informed supporters of developments as messages of support for the campaign poured in from around the country and throughout the globe. The Glen has been occupied for over two years by people desperate to prevent the cutting of this beautiful broad leaved forest in north County Wicklow - between the Sugar Loaf mountains - on the commercial artery that links Larne in the North with Rosslare in the South. The council wants to convert the existing two-lane road into a four-lane highway. The construction would destroy 1,700 trees, the Glen's delicate eco-system would be irreversibly damaged.
Following a High Court hearing earlier in the year, undertakings restraining Wicklow County Council from felling the trees and the Glen community from entering the cut zone were lifted. An appeal to the Supreme Court was lodged over the interpretation of the Wildlife Act. Wicklow believed they could go ahead without waiting for a court date.
Throughout the weekend, activists arrived with music, food and shelter, preparing to continue the campaign. Many activists were surprised that the council would act before the Supreme Court had finished its deliberations. A crew of determined campaigners quickly assembled to mobilise the defences that were prepared long ago in advance of the inevitable arrival of the yellow-jacketed council workers.
By Monday, when it was obvious that the council were not sending in the chainsaws, the campaign legal team went back to court and secured a hearing before the Supreme Court last Friday. The council admitted that it intended to go into the Glen on Sunday, 29 August. Wicklow subsequently gave an undertaking that they would wait until the Supreme Court hearing which has been set for 19 October.
It will now be up to the Supreme Court to interpret European law in what may be seen as a precedent in domestic law. As a consequence of the proposed SAC designation, the Glen is now protected under European law. Unfortunately for those who want to see the Glen remain intact, 26-County courts are not willing to enforce European law. To make matters more complicated, there is a loophole which would allow the state and Wicklow to remove the trees - if they can argue there are ``imperative reasons of over-riding public interest including those of a social or economic nature''. Under the Habitats Directive, member states are required to ensure that SACs are protected. We will now have to wait until October to see whether the Glen of the Downs becomes the first successful anti-road protest in Europe.
In the meantime, supporters of the Glen are intensifying their efforts to highlight the issues that characterise the protest. Despite public support for the campaign, the mainstream media has been feeding negative information on the campaign, to the extent that people are asking what it is all about. What's the point of protecting a few trees? Sure isn't the road at the Glen a bottleneck? Anyway you can't halt progress, can you?
At the local level, the destruction of 1,700 trees would appear to be nothing out of the ordinary. Sure can't they be replaced? Well they can - once the chainsaws have reduced the existing trees to sawdust and furniture and fuel and paper products and tarmac has covered the land they grew on - somewhere else! What cannot be replaced is the delicate eco-system in the Glen of the Downs. The destruction by the construction crews will forever change the Glen - and eventually the entire woodland will die out. It might take 10 years. It might take 20, but it will happen.
Both the 26-County state and Wicklow County Council know this. The council's consultants told them this. Their engineers didn't lie either. ``You can't build a road without causing destruction,'' their chief engineer said two years ago.
But even this is not the point. It is not progress we must halt - it is humanity's belief that every other species on this planet exists for our benefit and for us to exploit any way we like. Until we all begin to realise that this is the only planet we live on and everything we do to it we do to ourselves we are destined to go the same way as the dinosaurs.
Instead, those who proclaim these realities are marginalised, victimised and criminalised. The vigil keepers at the Glen of the Downs have been called criminals. And when some of these so-called `eco-warriors' get angry about what is happening, they are told they are mad, bad and dangerous to society. It's time we got our priorities right.
The campaign to save the Glen has caught the imagination of the Irish people. Felling the trees would be a public relations disaster for Wicklow County Council. Whether or not the campaign is ultimately successful in stopping the road, it has successfully opened a national debate on the sacrifices made in the name of the progress in Celtic Tiger Ireland.