Dodder Valley Park

One of the sketchers in our group lives in a beautiful area at the foothills of the Dublin mountains. Nearby, there is a wonderful park, full of wildlife - it follows the Dodder, a major green corridor for all the local fauna. But South Dublin County Council are planning to destroy it to make more playing pitches. I'm not a local, but apparently there are plenty of playing pitches already in the area, and they are under-utilised. So you have to wonder about the logic of this move.

We visited the Dodder Valley Park on Sunday - a beautiful, wild, tranquil green belt, with the river, fields, wild flowers, trees, bushes. Home to many insects and animals. Which will soon be bulldozed over if the council have their say. The barriers have already been erected and the bulldozers are in the field where I sketched, waiting to get started on their extinction mission.

Wasn't our Taoiseach in New York not long ago talking the green talk? When will our politicians finally get it? It doesn't matter that we are a small country. We still should do the right thing. Cut our carbon emissions significantly, plant trees, and protect natural habitat. It's our duty to the next generation - what use will those playing pitches be when the bees are gone and the crops are failing, and when the temperature has risen beyond the tipping point, along with the sea levels, wiping most of our cities off the face of the earth?