The autumn has been deluging this year; colour in the trees lingering before the storm which will certainly blow them away. And I find myself absenting from my duties here to be informed by life in the city of Helsinki, still far from rural Finland yet at the heart of a rural society which has a different agenda to our own. Reindeer, woodlands and lakes, frozen winter seas and tundra... and not so much uplands. In fact none.
Prior to leaving, I was delighted to look at the new Atlas of the Rural Landscape Edition 2, which includes a new chapter devoted to the Wicklow Uplands. At €69 Euro per copy we shall obtain one only for the Roundwood office so that all may see the review of the Uplands. I could not find an author to name, but surely it is someone with local knowledge.
Wicklow Uplands Council are winding up the 2012 year with a good record of activity and a full programme for the year to come.
Cara Doyle is our Coordinator, back from New Zealand, still enthusiastic and committed to our upland pile even if Gollum, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins are not here. We shall make do with Braveheart and Cara. We shall progress our concerns for Upland vegetation management in a difficult period when there is little incentive to manage the uplands for sheep grazing. We are working towards a submission on CAP in an effort to improve those conditions.
We have installed interpretative panels in Kilmacanogue, Enniskerry, Rathdangan and Tinahely this year for locals and visitors to better know their villages, as part of a rolling programme with assistance from Department of Arts Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Wicklow County Council and not least the local communities.
We are exploring the extension of our activities into the communities which surround the uplands, and hopefully next year a select few will be working on a template for a sustainable village which recognises the mutual dependence with those who work in the uplands.
We are also working together to establish a complex yet important policy for dog control to arrive at consensus; on how to welcome the visitor with dog, whilst making it absolutely clear that dogs are not welcome on those mountains where sheep are grazing, as the risk of anxiety or injury to sheep is too great.
Our Directors direct with determination, courtesy and concern to achieve a better life for those who live, work and take their recreation in the Wicklow Uplands. They struggle to maintain this unique place and those who look after it, and they proclaim its beauty as comparable as anywhere in Europe. Its inhabitants are stoic and persevering in their visions for an uncertain future, and I am privileged to be working among them.
Author: Wicklow Uplands Council Chairman, Philip Geoghegan
No comments:
Post a Comment