Sir, – Following on from John Farrelly’s letter (October 24th), the brutal fact is that the wellbeing of Irish wildlife is deteriorating rapidly. In my part of the country, we have lost the corncrake, cuckoo, curlew, skylark, grey partridge and long-eared owl. We see a few pathetic groups of green and golden plover where once they were in their thousands. Insect life has dwindled too, including butterflies and, most importantly, bees.
No river in Ireland is now clean enough for the freshwater mussel. Less than 2 per cent of our land area consists of deciduous woods, and so much life is in our hedgerows, but which are rapidly being removed, particularly after the loss of the Rural Environmental Protection Scheme (Reps), which was an excellent idea and paid for by the EU.
The first step to take is to reduce massively the use of chemicals, particularly pesticides, not just on the farms, but in the homes and gardens too (yes, the ladybird will eat the aphids).
The second is to restore Reps.
The third is to arrange the new farm subsidy intelligently, with a strong emphasis on the green aspect. Giving some big farmers €150,000 a year and small farmers €5,000 a year is simply stupid. They all have to put bread on the table. – Yours, etc,