Scottish Countryside Alliance welcomes...
The Scottish Countryside Alliance welcomes the cabinet secretary's statement to invite key...
about this blogRead moreOn Friday 21 April Countryside Alliance Ireland, along with other key stakeholders including Bird Watch Ireland, attended a stakeholder engagement meeting on the Open Season Order organised by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) on behalf of Minister Noonan.
Dr David Scallan, Secretary General FACE Europe, was on hand to explain how the Irish context sits with the EU.
Countryside Alliance Ireland stressed the value of wildfowlers:
- Improving habitats
- Encouraging wildfowl populations to increase with duck nesting tubes
- Raising money for local good causes benefiting their local communities
- Wildfowling clubs help bring communities together
- Wildfowling helps bring not only generations together but also encourages the young to get involved as they are the future custodians.
- Wildfowlers are aware they must be active conservationists.
We also highlighted the comments of Bob Davidson carrying out a survey of the small islands or “flats” of Lough Neagh which are valuable nesting sites for a range of birds, but which are threatened by the growth of trees and scrub and by predators such as mink and rats. One of his greatest allies in combating such threats, believe it or not, is the local wildfowling club who expend more energy on conservation than they do on shooting!
We were disappointed to hear NPWS staff talk about the precautionary principle near the end of the meeting as there was agreement of a lack of data. Countryside Alliance Ireland and other stakeholders made it clear that this would be seen as an act of bad faith and only serve to disenfranchise the shooting community who work tirelessly and have a vested interest to see wildfowl numbers flourish.
However, there was very positive engagement on the whole with some brilliant contributions from all of those present. A suggested clear path was debated which hopefully will be the start of an ongoing process that will deliver for nature into the future.
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