Walls of flame have been sweeping through Canadian forests at speeds of more than 48km/h, forcing 120,000 panic-stricken people to flee their homes and incinerating in excess of 10 million hectares of habitat. As someone who takes great solace and joy in having restored a mere 12 hectares of Irish Atlantic rainforest over the past 14 years, I find such figures mind-boggling and horrifying.
Similar scenes are playing out elsewhere in many other parts of the world, including closer to home, in Spain, Greece, and Turkey. This is what climate scientists have been warning us would come for decades, but it’s happening much faster than anticipated.
The terrifying shift away from climate stability we’re now witnessing in real time is primarily the result of burning fossil fuels, but is also caused by the loss of natural ecosystems that make our biosphere function. We cannot keep converting the entire planet from thriving, diverse natural habitats into artificial monocultures without very dire repercussions. We are now reaping that whirlwind, and heat records have been broken all over the world this month, both on land and at sea. These are only glimpses of the apocalyptic climate breakdown we’re facing if we don’t wake up, fast, and start taking meaningful action.
Yet emissions continue to rise, and nature is pushed out at a frenzied rate. Almost nowhere more so than here in Ireland, one of the most ecologically wrecked places on Earth, as shown in study after study. And the main reason is the relentless drive to make every last inch of land productive, leaving no place for nature, which has been haemorrhaging. The need for a seismic shift could not be greater. So it’s worth asking: where are those on the front line of land use issues, our farmers, at?
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We got a snapshot of that at a recent public meeting in Ballinasloe to discuss the EU Nature Restoration Law, where farmers’ fears and anger came to the surface. Reports from the meeting described shouts from the audience that “climate change is a hoax”, and that Ireland should get out of the European Union.
The European Parliament narrowly backed the law recently, following a bitter debate. It’s clear, from this event and others, that there is deep apprehension among many farmers about what the future holds.
For a thousand reasons, we urgently need to bring human activities back into balance with the rest of planetary life. That means, above all, cutting out fossil fuels and restoring nature on a massive scale: rewilding
Ironically, the very first sector in line to be devastated by climate and ecological breakdown is farming, and this is already the case in many parts of the world where freak heat waves and drought, or storms and floods, are making food production near impossible. For a thousand reasons, we urgently need to bring human activities back into balance with the rest of planetary life. That means, above all, cutting out fossil fuels and restoring nature on a massive scale: rewilding.
None of those genuinely advocating for change want to see it happen in ways that are unfair or insensitive to farmers. Where I live on the Beara Peninsula, west Cork, almost nobody can make a living purely from farming; everyone has to have some other sideline to make ends meet. But neither can they give up farming: it’s essential to survival. So if offered the choice of being paid to rewild, just as they are to farm, many would jump at that. Rewilding requires some inputs, but far less than traditional farming. Others would want to carry on as they are, and that must of course be respected.
The result would be a rich mosaic of land uses, enormously benefiting farmers, rural communities, nature, the climate, and society in general. Food security would actually be vastly improved, rather than threatened, if there was a move away from reliance on just beef and dairy. A true multiple win-win for everyone with, importantly, zero extra burden on the taxpayer.
By and large, farmers are decent, honest, hardworking people who want to do right by future generations. With progressive, visionary leadership, as well as continuing to feed people, they could become nature and climate champions.
But tragically, rather than see that most of those they represent have little to lose, and much to gain, from a new approach, some in farming organisations and certain political representatives have chosen the opposite path. Instead, they either deny that the ecological and climate crises exist, that they’re catastrophically serious, or claim that it has little to do with agriculture. Or that Ireland is too small to make a difference. That to even raise the issue of vanishing nature is “anti-farmer”, “ethnic cleansing”, or “Cromwell all over again”. That the only real problem is “urban elites” who don’t understand, and so want to destroy, the rural way of life. In using such ludicrously exaggerated language, the aim is to shut down discussion and block change.
By denying the science, and trying to delegitimise scientific bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, they are under the illusion that the problem can be made go away. But of course, the truth is that it absolutely cannot: physics doesn’t give two hoots what we say or think, only what we do. Or don’t do. Equally worryingly, there has been a tendency towards wild conspiracy theories and the political right, imitating developments in other countries like Holland. Support for the European People’s Party — of which Fine Gael is part — and its opposition to the Nature Restoration Law is a case in point.
So it’s quite understandable that many farmers have been fundamentally deceived regarding the real threat to their livelihoods and the future of Irish agriculture. That threat is runaway climate and ecological collapse, rather than those seeking to prevent it. In persistently seeking to block constructive dialogue, and thus delaying the just transition that must come if we’re to have a viable future, some who claim to represent farmers are actually doing the very opposite. They are committing an act of deep betrayal.
The Irish countryside could be full of vibrant, resilient communities, embedded in healthy natural ecosystems. We desperately need to start bringing wild nature back on a massive scale, but in ways that keep farmers on their land, with dignity and decent incomes. Surely circling such a square isn’t beyond us?
- Eoghan Daltun is an author and advocate for rewilding.