On this edition of Enviro:

• Proposal by Dublin city council to fell mature London Plane trees at Fairview Park Dublin
  Protest, and the forming of a human chain,has been organised for Friday 1st. September in front of Fairview Park to
  take place at 6 P M.
  Edel Leahy has just published an update on the petition ” Dublin City Council: Save the Trees Fairview “
  see Change.org. She explained the details on the Enviro program and explained the  campaign details.
• Sheffield England: John explained that the Sheffield City Council have felled more than 4,000 trees under a 2.2
   billion 25 year highways maintenance contract signed in 2012. Sheffield Tree Action Groups are protesting the felling of a further
  500 trees scheduled to be felled by the end of the year. The council has taken high court injunctions against
  three protestors including a Mr. Dilner and the Green Party councillor alison Teal to prevent them participating
  in future direct action. (The Times Friday August 11th. 2017)
• ENGLAND: RHS Garden Wisley more than 500 of its important trees are under threat from Highways
  England’s M25/A3 plans.
  The RHS has pointed out that the 500 threatened trees help to negate the emissions of 19,000 cars each year*.
  The RHS has carried out expert highway studies and is calling on the Government Agency to choose an option
  which does not take woodland from the garden, would not fell any of these important trees
  and would better improve road access to Wisley**. The RHS have stressed that these are
  irreplaceable historic trees that are more than 100 years old and have centuries more to live.
  These trees they have pointed out could be eliminated for a short-sighted road improvement scheme which would increase
   air pollution and destroy the habitats of a wide range of wildlife.
  RHS Wisley has  1.2 million visitors each year.
• Paul Wickam of Bayside Writers explained that the group are about to publish their fifth anthology of mainly poetry. He was joined by Jennifer Brady of the group. Paul explained what the group have achieved so far and read some poems. John pointed out that he is also a member of Bayside Writers.
• It was explained to listeners to Enviro that changing weather patterns are resulting in more frequent
  and more intense weather conditions as evidenced by recent extreme flooding in Co. Donegal Ireland.
  For most of Ireland the number of days with intense rainfall shows an increasing trend.There followed a group discussion on the subject and reference was made to the extreme flooding and devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey in Texas in the US.
• Johns explained about his visit to Kiltimagh last weekend, as  part of his participation in Heritage week.
  He pointed out  that Kiltimagh was the birthplace of Raftery the last of the wandering bard/musicians. John said
  that he visited and stayed two nights in the restored Gore Mill located also in Kiltimagh.
  Jennifer Brady explained the importance of Raftery from the point of view of Irish culture and tradition and gave details of his life.
  John recited part of his poem ‘Mise Raftery an File, Lan Docas is Gra, Le suile gan solas, Le ciunas gan Cra’.
• Jennifer Brady gave details of the forthcoming launch of her autobiography ‘If Only I had left the Beach’.
• Listeners were informed that several environmental organisations including the Wildlife Trust, Birdwatch Ireland,
  an Taisce and the Hedge Layers Association have petitioned The Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht,
  Heather Humphreys TD, who has proposed changes to the Wildlife Act that would allow for the burning of vegetation
  in March and the cutting of hedgerows in August. These groups maintain that the result would have
  serious impacts on a range of wildlife species and habitats throughout Ireland –
  especially highly-threatened nesting birds and pollinators found in our hedgerows and uplands.
  The Bill to facilitate these changes is going to be brought in front before the Seanad in October 2017.