Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-09-22-Speech-1-045"
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"en.20080922.18.1-045"2
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"Mr President, despite our wet Irish climate, major flooding was a relatively uncommon occurrence in the past. Recently, destructive flooding has become a yearly, seasonal phenomenon.
A number of factors are implicated: building on flood plains, poor maintenance of drains etc. But one important contributing factor – inappropriate plantation forestry – was encouraged by EU funding over the last couple of decades and for this reason deserves your close scrutiny.
These spruce tree plantations, especially when planted on upland areas, have significantly changed the drainage pattern of Irish river systems. At the same time, the planting of native Irish trees and forests was largely neglected, because of the way the funds were organised in the past.
It is unfortunate that in the new Rural Development Programme, Ireland has chosen to exclude forestry from the scheme. To starve native Irish forestry of funds at this critical time, when it needs to make a comeback, is a recipe for disaster, with increased flooding, water contamination, CO
build-up and a continued loss of soil fertility.
There are token projects in the programme involving native species. However, it cannot be denied that an opportunity to use the funds for native trees to mitigate against future flooding has been lost."@en1
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"2"1
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