Irish Examiner view: Let Killarney fires be a real turning point
The fire blazed throughout the night at Killarney National Park. Picture: Valerie O'Sullivan
Around this time last week, when the tremendous threat attacking our oldest national park became apparent firefighters, park staff, conservationists, ecologists, and those living on the fringes of Killarney park longed for heavy rain.
That rain, so frequent on this damp, Atlantic island, did not materialise. It took five days, tremendous effort and risk, to control the flames. It will take decades for the park to recover — unless there is another park inferno in the interim. The circular nature of stewardship is underlined as heavy rainfall now might deepen the catastrophe. A deluge would wash ash into lakes or rivers adding a carbon spike to waterways already badly compromised. Soil clinging to steep slopes might slide away as the roots knitting soil, plants, and hillside together have been burnt.
The rain did not materialise but, inevitably, Government ministers arrived to show support. It would be unfair to particularly criticise Heritage Minister Darragh O’Brien or Minister of State for Heritage Malcolm Noonan as they did no more, or no less, than a litany of their predecessors have done. Mr O’Brien promised improved funding while ruling out local taxes on the tourism sector, a primary beneficiary of a well-managed park, to fund that upgrading. Mr Noonan reiterated that the National Parks and Wildlife Service will double its intake of rangers, though how they will be deployed is uncertain.
So too is the cause of the fire — as is the case with the annual carnival of hill fires leading up to week's razing. This fire was so destructive that its cause must be established and if, as so many fear, arson is confirmed there must be proportionate consequences. Shoulder shrugging cannot continue especially as the fires — three it is believed — started almost simultaneously at different places in the dark ruling out several well-aired deflections. It is not an exaggeration to say that this investigation is a litmus test of how our environmental stewardship has evolved.
Though the sorrow provoked — anger if arson was the cause — is justified it is not too difficult to level a charge of selective outrage. The fires concentrated minds about our national parks that have not had the protection they deserve for decades. In Killarney's lakes, water quality has declined relentlessly yet the town's water treatment capabilities are utterly inadequate. Yet that well-documented failing does not stir the emotions as the fires did though the impact is every bit as destructive. Why is that?
Could it be a form of denial epitomised by the fact that commercial salmon netting continues, despite a looming Red List designation, at the other end of the Laune system at Cromane? That West Waterford residents are fighting an industrial pig farm that would generate nearly 20m litres of slurry a year is another example of that disconnect.
The Killarney fire was and will be an ongoing tragedy, but it is too good a crisis to waste. If it was a germination point for a new, more determined protection of our natural heritage from indifference, ignorance, and industrialisation it might be a price worth paying.
Silence, in the face of such assaults, is no longer possible.
There is, after all, far more than our national parks, rivers, or lakes in growing jeopardy.
