People's forest to displace Indaver's proposed incinerator

cork | environment | news report Monday November 01, 2004 21:19 by Nelys the Alchemyst

Yesterday saw a spontaneous convergence of diverse groups and individuals to plant trees on a site at Ringaskiddy. The aim of the planting was to assert a change of use for this land that up to now has tended to be referred to as "the proposed incinerator site". Now we can find a more beautiful name to call it.

Planting was carried out by local people of all ages from Ringaskiddy and other harbour communities as well as some from Cork City and some pixie like folk who brought trees and acorns and then disappeared. Trees planted were mainly native oak, hazel and rowan for the drier areas and willow slips and birch for the wet parts. There were also lots of acorns thrown randomly into clumps of bramble. No-one was counting but we could be talking around 200 plants. A good start.

Of great excitement to the workers when they arrived was the state of the beach and adjacent land caused by Thursday's flooding. It looked as if the sea had vomited over the land. Huge rocks and lumps of driftwood, interspersed with plastic flotsam had been thrown up onto the grassy area and carpark next to the beach. The tarmac in the carpark was inexplicably buckled in places and the earth cliff further along the beach had been eroded by a good few feet. A deep pool of water still lay on the road at the turning to Haulbowline. Strangely, the notice board we put up some weeks back that would have been in the middle of all this was untouched.

Turns out this all happened on the same day CHASE people were up at the High Court in Dublin and the EPA gave draft permission for the Cork incinerator and the one in Carranstown, Co Meath. Spooky eh? There was an eclipse that night also. Now whether this was down to gods, demons, nature spirits, magic spells, prayers or meteorological phenomena makes no difference. One thing's for sure it doesn't bode well for an incinerator on a site so vulnerable to flooding, especially with global warming and all.

It also seems that delays in the legal process are rattling Indaver. They are losing money all the time this is going on. They are seeking to shortcut the process by offering to drop their move to block CHASE from taking the judicial review. At the moment this has to be resolved before the case proper can start. Delays are great, they grind down the opposition and give us time to get our act together so we all need to hang on in there and keep applying the pressure.

Please, if you are near the site do pay a visit. It's really important because touching the place helps make it real for us. If you want to plant more trees go ahead. Imagine the site in 200 years time when those oaks are mature. That's the timescale we talking about but what we do now matters a lot. We've tied coloured wool onto some of the trees to make them obvious but not all got done so watch where yr walking also.

There's talk of another planting event the same time next month. That would be 28th Nov. If anyone wants to organise for this please go ahead. We need trees, seeds, tools, music, banners, fancy dress, food and people. Posters also need making. That's about it. Massive respect to all those who helped make this happen, gave trees and came along. You know who you are. See you next month.