Urgent call on public to mobilise to Avondale as prominent artists and activists join forces to oppose public forest sale
In a statement the Natural Resources Protection Alliance & The Woodland League have appealed to the public to join the “Walk in the Woods” protest and concert in Avondale Forest Park this Sunday April 28th to oppose the sale of the harvesting rights to Ireland’s publicly owned forest estate under the EU-IMF ‘Troika programme.
“The Walk in the Woods” will feature songs, poems and readings from Christy Moore, Paddy Casey, Jeremy irons, Sinead Cusack, Denis Conway, Brid Ní Neachtain, Larry Beau, Madu, Landless & more. The event will assemble at 1pm in the car-park of Avondale House.
In their statement, the organisers said that it was deeply ironic that a charity was this weekend organising communities across the country to plant one million trees, while at the same time the government was moving to sell-off tens of millions of trees to pay-off the gambling debts of private financial institutions.
The organisers also strongly criticised the government for breaking pre-election promises that they would oppose moves to privatise Coillte and retain the national forest estate in public hands. They pointed to a statement made in 2011 by the then shadow Agriculture spokesperson for Fine Gael , Andrew Doyle, now chair of the Oireachtas committee on Agriculture, where he said:
“Coillte must stay; forestry is at the heart of Ireland’s response to climate change”.
“Our vital national resources are not up for sale. National resources like forestry, agriculture and marine resources are held in trust for all the people of Ireland. Ministers are stewards of these resources and must return them to the people with benefits after their term in office. That includes the forests of Ireland”
The organisers said this was another shameful betrayal of pre-election promises by the current government, this time concerning one of Ireland’s most precious, natural, cultural and economic assets.
Richard Boyd Barrett TD, convenor of the The Natural Resources Protection Alliance and one of the organisers of the “Walk in the Woods” said:
“It is really vitally important that the public are made aware of this utterly shameful proposal to sell-off the harvesting rights to 1.2 million acres of the public forest estate to private speculators, and that we mobilise urgently to stop this outrage. It beggars belief that we are being forced to sell-off this priceless cultural and economic asset to pay off the debts of bankers and that bankers would most probably end-up owning our forests. It’s truly ironic that at the same time charities and communities up and down the country are planting one million trees this weekend, the government plan to sell-off tens of millions of trees to financial speculators. You couldn’t make it up!
This move by the government also represents, yet another, disgraceful betrayal of pre-election promises by the coalition, where only weeks before the election, Fine Gael’s spokesperson on Agriculture, stated categorically that our public forest estate was “not for sale.” However, people power can stop this outrage. We are delighted that so many prominent artists, musicians and actors have agreed to take part in what is a rapidly developing coalition against the forest sale. We urge everyone who cares about our natural and cultural heritage and our economic future to come down to Avondale on Sunday. It’s going to be a great day and it can make a real difference.”
Andrew St. Ledger, PRO of The Woodland League said,
“Let us as the People, never forget that the Irish Constitution, seeks to promote the common good. Article 6.1 All powers of government legislative, executive, and judicial, derive from the people, whose right it is to designate the rulers of the State and in final appeal, to decide all questions of National policy, according to the requirements of the common good.
This government have no right to sell this most vital common good, the Public Forest Harvesting Rights, our last most, Strategic Natural Resource, without the consent of We the People. “