OFFICIAL OPENING OF THE IRISH WILDBIRD CONSERVANCY 25TH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
SPEAKING NOTES FOR THE PRESIDENT, MARY ROBINSON, ON 20 NOVEMBER, 1993
- It gives me great pleasure to be with you today on the occasion of the 25th Anniversary Conference of the Irish Wildbird Conservancy.
- In a world which is being made increasingly aware of the very finite nature of its natural resources, the I.W.C. represents one of the most important and longest established non-Governmental conservation organisation in Ireland.
- As we have heard, the I.W.C. has made an enormous contribution to the welfare of bird life (and by extension the environment in general) since its formation in 1968. The history of its achievements constitute a remarkable record for a voluntary organisation. With a current membership of 4,000, it owns 17 Reserves and maintains 23 branches.
- Its first purchase, in partnership with the then Department of Lands, was the hugely important Wexford Wildfowl Reserve, now cared for by the National Parks and Wildlife Service of the Office of Public Works. This is one of the most important areas for wildfowl in the country and in Winter time is host to a large segment of the world population of Greenland Whitefronted Geese. The pioneering role of the I.W.C. in this venture was an invaluable service to conservation.
- This willingness to push back limits in the interests of conservation is evident in one of the latest projects in which your organisation is involved, once again in co-operation with the National Parks & Wildlife Service. This involves the attempt to save one of Ireland's most threatened species, namely the corncrake. The project involves the radio tracking of individual members of the species, and also the payment of grants to farmers who farm in a corncrake-friendly way. I am happy to note that the State is supporting these undertakings with a large measure of financial assistance.
- Ireland's richness of flora and fauna is part of a great natural inheritance. The role of organisations such as the I.W.C. in preserving this heritage is of primary importance, in that the general public are given an opportunity to actively engage in conservation activities, in a manner meaningful to them. This input of the public to the maintenance of Ireland's natural heritage is essential to its future. The greater the number of people who are drawn to appreciate the richness and diversity of the natural world, the easier the task of preserving that richness.
- Humankind have throughout their history had a fascination with birds. They have been many things to many people. A source of food; a source of clothing material; an element of inspiration for artists in prose and poetry and the visual media.
- The very impulse to flight itself, with the subsequent historical development of air flight and space travel can all (to a degree) be said to be due to the example of feathered flight.
- Birds as a link to the sublime is a motif which is as old as thought - their primacy as a symbol of nature is equally established. Nowhere better expressed than by Gerard Manley Hopkins:-
"I caught this morning, morning's minion,
Kingdom of daylight's dauphin,
Dapple-dawn-drawn falcon, in his riding of the rolling level,
Underneath him steady air, and striding high there,
How he hung upon the rein of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy!
Then off, off forth on swing, as a skate's heel sweeps
smooth on a bow-bend:
The hurl and gliding rebuffed the big wind.
My heart in hiding stirred for a bird, -
The achieve of, the majesty of the thing!"
- The horror of a world without bird-song is too terrible to contemplate. It is an image of the wasteland or the battlefield. I wish the Irish Wildbird Conservancy continued success in ensuring that the bough-tops will whistle and sing for our descendants as graciously as they do for us.