State refuses release of 2020 images recording ongoing turf cutting on protected raised bogs

Machinery at work on 28 protected raised bogs confirmed to Europe by Ireland

The National Parks and Wildlife Service has refused to release images recording ongoing destruction of Ireland’s protected raised bogs during 2020.

The request came from the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] who first brought the activities to the attention of the authorities in 2009. The prohibition on cutting on 56 Special Areas of Conservation {SAC] protected raised bogs was due to take effect in 1998 but was not imposed until 2009. ... read full story / add a comment

As countries address their debt crises, policy responses can reduce climate change, asserts a new study. “Linking Debt Relief and Sustainable Development: Lessons from Experience,” examines previous debt relief processes to learn how debt and climate responses can work in tandem. ... read full story / add a comment

The environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment has called on Taoiseach Micheal Martin to clarify the Irish government's position in relation to efforts to allow the EU to subsidize nuclear power plants. According to a document seen by Friends of the Irish environment, several countries, including France, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, want the EU to allow subsidies to nuclear plants in return for backing a higher EU 2030 climate target. However, other countries including Luxembourg and Austria, are rejecting these plans. The position of the Irish government is not clear. ... read full story / add a comment

By a vote of 84 to 13, the Senate passed corporate transparency legislation as part of the annual vote on the National Defense Authorization Act. ... read full story / add a comment

Campaigners for opening of Court records claim initial victory
High Court Direction to release records welcomed

A new ‘High Court Practice Direction’ issued by the Court Service on 13 November 2020 has been claimed as an initial victory by campaigners seeking access to Court records after the judicial process is completed. [1]

The Direction issued recently by Mary Irvine, President of the High Court, allows any member of the public to seek access to the written submissions provided to the Court by parties in proceedings after 11 January 2021. ... read full story / add a comment

Music can uplift, inspire, or soothe us at any stage of life. We might react with smiles or tears when we hear a certain song, depending on the kind of event that it prompts us to recall. 'Magical moments' welcomes art and writing related to memories of joy, awe, peace or happiness. ... read full story / add a comment

Atlantic Bays stripped of wild fish to eat lice off farmed salmon
Records show 1.6m wild fish destroyed in 4 years

More than 1.6 million wild fish were taken from Ireland’s Atlantic bays to eat the lice off farmed salmon between May 2015 and November 2019. The figures, released to environmental groups through Access to Information on the Environment requests, are the first official record of salmon farming’s practices on these wild fish. ... read full story / add a comment

All seven known as the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 were protesting against the presence of nuclear weapons in Kings Bay in Georgia USA. Martha was the sixth defendant to go to prison. She goes there in honour after four friends testified on her behalf. One of them told the court that in a future nuclear holocaust when stricken children would ask their dying parents 'why didn’t somebody stop this, while we still had a chance to stop it? ' the response would be be: “Some people DID try to stop this. But we prosecuted them. And we locked them away.”] ... read full story / add a comment

On Friday, the G20 convenes an extraordinary meeting on debt reduction for developing countries affected by the COVID-19 economic crisis. ... read full story / add a comment

Call for Covid-19 ‘track and trace’ for rhododendron
Spread of rhododendron ‘death warrant’ for countryside

The spread of rhododendron across Ireland’s countryside has been likened to Covid-19 by an environmental charity, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE]. FIE have called for a ‘track and trace’ programme to be put in place to control the increasing spread of this ‘beautiful and picturesque death warrant’.

... read full story / add a comment

Twelve years after losing their original case against the planning permission for a LNG terminal on the Shannon River, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] today received a High Court order quashing An Bord Pleanala’s grant of permission and awarding costs in their favour. The proposed terminal was due to process Liquid Natural Gas [LNG] from the USA for consumption in Ireland and to be distributed throughout the EU.

... read full story / add a comment

Press Release from Dept of Foreign Affairs

"I am deeply dismayed to learn of the demolition by Israeli authorities on 3 November of more than 70 structures, belonging to 11 Palestinian families in the community of Humsa Al Bqai’a* in the northern Jordan Valley. These demolitions include residential, livelihood and sanitation facilities." ... read full story / add a comment

High Court to hear challenge against unsustainable fishing in Ireland and the EU

The Irish High Court granted leave today to the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] to apply for a Judicial Review aimed at challenging the EU Regulation setting 2020 fishing quotas under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) because of its failure to meet a legally defined deadline of ending overfishing in all stocks by 2020.

... read full story / add a comment

G20 finance ministers agreed to extend debt payment relief for the 73 poorest countries and, in principle, to have a common framework to cancel debts. The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors met on global COVID-19 response plans ahead of the Annual IMF and World Bank Meetings. ... read full story / add a comment

Analyzing the economic crisis spurred by the coronavirus, the International Monetary Fund released the Global Financial Stability Report and the 2020 World Economic Outlook Report, "A Long and Difficult Ascent." The economic outlook report projects global economic growth to contract 4.4%. ... read full story / add a comment

Given the expectation that the public must accept what restrictions the State imposes, the basis of these decisions are not the exclusive preserve of experts and advisers or even of elected officials. None of these officials was elected with the prospect of severe restriction of personal liberty in view. Yet this power has been arrogated by these officials on the basis of advice of a dire public health emergency, the predictions of which proved wholly exaggerated. It is insufficient at this stage to claim “emergency.” The emergency has passed. The harm has proved far less than advertised. Deaths are few. Yet “recommendations” are still being promulgated, and severe restrictions are again being proposed. ... read full story / add a comment

IMF head Kristalina Georgieva warned that developing countries could face a second wave of economic crises just as they are recovering from the coronavirus pandemic. "... There is a need to reform the international debt 'architecture' ... to provide speedy and sufficiently deep debt relief to countries that need it, benefitting not only these countries but the system as a whole," wrote Georgieva and other top IMF officials in a Fund blog published Thursday. ... read full story / add a comment

Call on Minister to control private companies as Bord Na Mona quits peat bedding sector

Action comes two years after environmental complaint

Two years after calling on the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, to exercise his powers under the legislation to stop Teagasc, the Farm Advisory Service, and Bord na Mona from promoting the use of deep peat for bedding in animal housing, Bord na Mona has announced that it is exiting the peat bedding market.

The extent of the practice came to light on field trips conducted by Friends of the Irish Environment in the summer of 2018. It coincided with Bord na Mona and Teagasc beginning to market peat as an alternative to straw after the poor harvests led to shortages of straw. The company entered the market in 2017, having reportedly appointed a team to manage sales and grow the market in the wake of reduced use of peat for power generation.

... read full story / add a comment

Presidents, prime ministers and world leaders focused on solutions for the global economic crisis spurred by the coronavirus at a virtual United Nations meeting. ... read full story / add a comment

The G7 supports a process for debt cancellation for vulnerable countries, they announced this morning after Treasury convened a special Finance Ministers meeting. ... read full story / add a comment