Protect Knocksink Wood – a grassroots campaign against overdevelopment

This is Knocksink Wood, on the outskirts of Enniskerry, Co Wicklow. And this precious nature reserve, an EU-designated Special Area of Conservation, is under threat. Check out @protect_knocksink_wood on Instagram for all details.

The local community must raise €50,000 (a first instalment of €25,000 was raised in time for the 1 December deadline) in order to challenge in court a new housing development that will cause irreparable damage to the rare and fragile ecosystem of Knocksink.

Polluted or contaminated water from the site could overflow into the woods and the pristine Glencullen River. All that at a time when the EPA publishes report after damning report on the critical state of biodiversity and the worsening pollution of Ireland’s rivers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Protect Knocksink Nature Reserve (@protect_knocksink_wood)

This is not nimbyism, a.k.a “not-in-my-backyard” activism. Politicians and their corporate cronies accuse such objections to planning of standing in the way of solving the housing crisis. But it is just a cheap shot to hide the dismal failure of the government’s housing policies.

A few days ago, the world’s first ever Citizens Assembly on Biodiversity Loss voted overwhelmingly in favour of a referendum to enshrine the rights of nature into Ireland’s Constitution.

• Read: Call to protect biodiversity and nature in Constitution – RTÉ 27 Nov 2022

But that’ll come too late for Knocksink Woods Nature Reserve.

Once again, regular people have to stand up to the “all development is good development” brigade, and shoulder an unfair financial burden in order to protect their local environment, thus upholding the public interest for current and future generations against the government and powerful private interests.

A GoFundMe campaign to protect Knocksink

So if you can, please donate here to help the local community reach their fundraising target.

Because, as Joni Mitchell sings in Big Yellow Taxi,
“You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,
They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”

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