Sir, - It is a source of some dismay to me that when it comes to the planting of trees for nature conservation, the practice in Ireland is often very much out of date. For example, in the United Kingdom, and in almost all other countries of the developed world, it is considered indispensable, when planting for such purposes, to use, if it exists, a local source of native tree seed taken from not more than say ten miles distance. This is because such trees have evolved their characteristics over thousands of years to the specific conditions and micro climate of the area, and are in fact an irreplaceable storehouse of biodiversity whose like exists nowhere else in the world.
Thus what often passes for "scrub" and "waste land" here, many times contains the native seeds of the trees that once formed the original wildwood on this island, and represents, from a nature conservation point of view, the most valuable habitat in Ireland. Once this specific treasure of Irish native biodiversity is lost, it is lost forever.
In many countries, such as Scotland, England, France and Canada, rather than millennium projects that just mix more cement, people are thinking of restoring some of the sacredness of the devastated earth they call their native land. As a result they are regenerating their original forests and restoring some of the once extinct wildlife that lived there.
Given that Ireland has the least amount of native woodland in the EU, the planting of, for example, four huge native forests in the four provinces of Ireland would, in my opinion, be a particularly appropriate way to mark the millennium. Those forests would in time represent the Ireland of the Wildwoods, what it was before man arrived and gradually tidied things up. exterminating in passing, not only huge forests, but such creatures as the wolf, the bear, the woodpecker, the eagle and on and on.
If such a project is too visionary for this particular Celtic Tiger generation, at the very least, may it not be beyond us to ensure the survival of our native trees that will allow a future generation, perhaps more enlightened than our own, to one day recreate something of the historic native wildwood of Ireland. Yours etc.,
Castlegregory,
Co. Kerry