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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 2h

It's mad to think that pheasants are on the 'countryside bird index' which is an indicator of healthy bird populations 🫠

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Reposted by Pádraic Fogarty

Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan @london.gov.uk · 5h

Thanks to London’s bold action, almost 10 million people are now breathing cleaner air.

That means fewer children will grow up with stunted lungs and fewer people will have to suffer from asthma, dementia and heart disease.

London hits clean air milestone 184 years early - ULEZ makes 'big difference'

A professor has branded the success a 'truly remarkable turnaround for the city's air quality'

www.mylondon.news

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 3h

The tragedy of industrial fishing strikes another species off the list. It would appear that this will only end when there are no fish left to catch.

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ou...

Once 'sustainable' mackerel stocks are drastically declining

While overfishing is the main problem for mackerel stocks, climate change has been having an impact too

www.irishexaminer.com

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 1d

This is first and foremost very bad news for mackerel and the ecosystem that is being destroyed by industrial supertrawlers

www.rte.ie/news/2025/10...

Fishing industry facing 'economic Armageddon'

The Irish fishing industry has warned it is bracing for catastrophic fishing quotas next year that "could collapse the Irish fishing sector and devastate major fishing communities".

www.rte.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 2d

On budget day the sheep industry will be looking for yet more increases in direct payments of taxpayers money per head of sheep, despite their own admission that's it's in terminal decline. Why should society be paying out again and again?

www.independent.ie/farming/shee...

Sheep sector at a crossroads as factories demand new plan to halt decline

The warning signs have been there for decades. From a high of nearly five million breeding ewes in the early 1990s, numbers have slipped steadily downwards, falling again this year to just 2.6m.

www.independent.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 2d

"Animals that capture nutrients through filtration, such as mussels, anemones and soft corals, do not thrive when bottom trawls stir up sediment from the seabed. Several of these species have recovered significantly"

phys.org/news/2025-10...

Unique videos show how trawling restrictions bring back life to the sea

Trawling restrictions not only benefit fish and shellfish; anemones and corals are also becoming more common, according to a new study from the University of Gothenburg. Twenty-six years of underwater...

phys.org

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 4d

The last in my series of reports from Ireland's 8 national parks is from Brú na Bóinne/ Boyne Valley in County Meath

www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/ou...

This could end up being the most radical of all our national parks...

Brú na Bóinne/Boyne Valley National Park may show us the way back from intensive farming practices that leave so little space for nature

www.irishexaminer.com

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 5d

One by one our waterways are dying off. Lough Carra has people who care about it, but will it be enough to reverse the damage already done?

www.westernpeople.ie/news/major-m...

Major Mayo lake cannot be allowed to become a 'cess pool' - news - Western People

The lake supplies Lough Mask, a major source of drinking water in Mayo.

www.westernpeople.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 6d

A tragic loss. Manchán has helped us define a different kind of relationship with nature based on our language and traditions. RIP.

RTÉ News @news.rte.ie · 6d

The writer, broadcaster and documentary maker Manchán Magan has died at the age of 55, his family has confirmed

Broadcaster and scríbhneoir Manchán Magan dies aged 55

The writer, broadcaster and documentary maker Manchán Magan has died at the age of 55, his family has confirmed.

www.rte.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 7d

Finally!

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Reposted by Pádraic Fogarty

Paul Price @swimsure.bsky.social · 7d

Bark beetle only adds to plantation forestry's increasing climate change vulnerability from storms & fire.
And yet, Advisory Council (CCAC) carbon budget alignment with Ireland's commitments to the Paris Agreement is hugely dependent on assuming big *permanent* carbon storage via afforestation...

Preliminary warming analysis (GWP*) by Paul Price showing Ireland's annual and cumulative warming contribution in a CCAC shortlisted scenario passing the "Paris Test". Highly questionably, the L4 scenario for LULUCF (land) assumes annual carbon negative land use by 2040 and permanent CDR in afforestation of over 400 MtCO2 by 2100.

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 7d

Taxpayers will - as usual - pick up the tab when this beetle arrives. But instead of creating a resilient forestry sector, the government is paying the industry to double down on Sitka spruce monocultures.

www.irishtimes.com/environment/...

Is Ireland ready for spruce bark beetles? An invasion is ‘only a matter of time’

Eight-toothed insect, which has killed millions of trees across Europe, has made landfall in England and could soon be in Ireland

www.irishtimes.com

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 7d

So sad - Jane Goodall fought for nature when it wasn't fashionable to do so and continued fighting when she knew she'd never see the better world she wanted. A true heroine.

www.irishtimes.com/world/2025/1...

Jane Goodall, primatologist and global activist, dies aged 91

Scientist turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest to protect the environment

www.irishtimes.com

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Reposted by Pádraic Fogarty

An Taisce @antaisce.bsky.social · 8d

How many chances should be given to get it right?

Non-compliance under our licence system appears to be more the norm than the aberration when it comes to protecting our water quality

Insights from last night's Joint Committee on Climate, Environment & Energy session on River Blackwater fish kill

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Reposted by Pádraic Fogarty

Josiah Mortimer @josiah.writes.news · 8d

Some good news.

London is meeting legal limits for toxic NO2 pollution for the first time – almost 200 years earlier than predicted – following the Mayor’s "world leading air pollution policies," City Hall announces.

The Ultra Low Emissions Zone - and similar policies - really do work.

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 8d

In France, the government wants to abandon licencing for killing wolves altogether and move to a system of 'shoot now, explain later'. This is despite the fact that livestock mortality is decreasing in areas with established wolves.

www.lemonde.fr/planete/arti...

La France prévoit d’autoriser tous les éleveurs à tuer des loups pour défendre leur troupeau

Après avoir poussé en faveur d’un changement de statut de l’espèce, « protégée » et non plus « strictement protégée », l’Etat entend passer d’un régime d’autorisation à un régime déclaratif pour les t...

www.lemonde.fr

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 8d

The lowering of the protected status of wolves in the EU is unleashing a killing spree in France and Spain including the opening of sport hunting in the Rioja province.

All because a wolf killed Dolly, Ursula von der Leyen's pony...

elpais.com/clima-y-medi...

WWF denuncia que La Rioja permite cazar lobos y llevarse su cabeza como trofeo por 1.298 euros

Es la primera comunidad autónoma donde la caza del animal se vuelve a convertir en deporte, advierten los ecologistas. Es necesario obtener previamente una autorización administrativa

elpais.com

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 8d

Tks Annie, will have a read

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 9d

And in many cases - unfortunately! - the NPWS have no intention of rewilding the land

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 9d

Given that the INHFA was adamantly against the Nature Restoration Law, and that the NPWS brings major economic benefits to rural areas, bringing land into public ownership can only be a good thing.

www.agriland.ie/farming-news...

State land purchases for rewilding 'continue to alienate farmers'

The government's efforts to purchase land for the purpose of rewilding land "continues to alienate...

www.agriland.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 10d

Wild, native plants growing in rivers are not litter and don't need to be 'cleaned'.

After farm pollution, digging up rivers is the biggest reason for poor health of rivers in Ireland.

www.mayonews.ie/news/westpor...

Council agree to proceed with cleaning of west Mayo river

Mayo County Council agree to start clean-up of the downstream section of the Moyour River in Kilmeena

www.mayonews.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 12d

I don't pretend that these are going to be easy conversations but we have start having them. We can't continue the situation whereby a small number of people get to hold up the common good.

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 12d

I don't expect people who rely on trawling to make a living to ever be in favour of Marine Protected Areas. That is why we need to offer them a way out: buy outs of gear, cheap loans for new businesses, training etc.

www.independent.ie/regionals/we...

Wexford fishermen resistant to pending legislation – ‘The people who propose these things have probably never been out at sea’

Wexford fishermen have once again raised concerns over the need for further legislation in the industry while also appealing to the government to talk to the fishing communities of Ireland directly ab...

www.independent.ie

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 12d

She was a disaster

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Pádraic Fogarty @whittledaway.bsky.social · 13d

Totally. I know the effort from NPWS staff that goes into these cases. If this was the UK or Spain he'd be banged up in jail

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