This piece is extracted from the article in The Nationalist written by two of our club members, Dara Kenny age 13 & Ruby Cowdell age 14
Recently we went to the Dáil and delivered a presentation to Minister Malcolm Noonan, Senator Vincent P. Martin, Minister Ossian Smyth, Councillor Carolyn Moore and a NPWS government official.
Our presentation was on Biodiversity Loss and a proposed peatlands park which is a group of local and national NGOs who came together to propose a 7,000 hectare Peatlands Park in Kildare and the midlands and to promote biodiversity in our environment.
We showed them our short film and talked to them about Biodiversity Loss and the importance of our bogs.
Did you know that bogs hold up to ten times more carbon per metre than rainforests? This is true but unfortunately there are plans to build wind farms on this land. We all support renewable energy but with access roads, pylons, electricity cables and drainage this would have a terrible impact on the rehabilitation of our bog and would release lots of the carbon stored there. Doesn’t it make sense to build wind farms anywhere else other than our peatlands?
We can’t keep destroying our wildlife just because animals have no voices to object.We want renewable energy as well as biodiversity not instead of!
The bogs are Ireland’s Amazon. We watch in horror at the destruction of the Amazon but yet we have a plan to do the same to ours.
We asked the Minister, ‘‘If you owned a piece of the Amazon, would you choose to build a wind farm on it?’’
One of the club members Freddy said
“I think we got through to them well and we were given lots of positive feedback”
Dara said
“I definitely think we are going to get this Peatlands Park because of all our projects, petitions, activities and our website. I hope all our work will pay off!”
