Opinion
Sing for Wales or shut your trap
Mari Mitchell
‘Sing for Wales or shut your trap
All the rest’s a load of crap.’
Harri Webb (1920 – 1994) - a poet who fought against the drowning of Tryweryn by the Liverpool City Corporation in 1965. They apologised in 2005. Wales doesn’t forget.
Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
As part of our plan to tackle the climate emergency, Wales needs to plant 43,000 hectares of new woodland by 2030.’ To this end, the Welsh Government’s Sustainable Farming Scheme had a requirement for farmers to plant 10% trees in a Woodland Creation Scheme, while the development of wind farms on forestry land to the east of Brechfa and elsewhere will necessitate removing vast numbers of trees. Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru’s pylons would run in tandem with GreenGen’s pylons, which will remove even more farmland from food production, risking food security. (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report 28th July 2023).
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Public meeting
In April 2020, the Welsh Government launched their National Forest of Wales project; in November 2022, NRW produced their Brechfa Forest Resource Plan. A public meeting was held in Brechfa to show these plans.
They set a direction to develop programmes ‘to include the ecosystem approach for woodlands and forests within the context of wider landscape and environment, using an integrated natural resource management approach.’ This includes developing continuous cover and, importantly, restoring and managing ancient woodlands.
This was approved in December 2024 but now includes a section about renewable energy.
Representatives of Trydan Gwyrdd Cymru, the publicly owned renewable energy developer for Wales, state that there is no ancient woodland in the path of these turbines, yet NRW’s maps show differently.
Moreover, there is no reference to establishing wind turbines and related pylons, wooden poles or otherwise in NRW’s plans of 2022.
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Welfare
There is a commitment to protect the welfare and mental health of the population (Welsh Government strategy for All-Age Mental Health and Wellbeing 2024 – 2034). The government makes donations to charities such as Tir Dewi and DPJ Foundation while pursuing strategies which exacerbate poor mental health in farming and the general public.
Tourism in Carmarthenshire is valued at £600 million a year, creating thousands of jobs. The Welsh Government’s ‘Priorities for the Visitor Economy 2020-2025 are to deliver ‘benefits for people and places including environmental sustainability, cultural and social enrichment and health benefits.’
Wales is not alone in fighting the proliferation of wind turbines and pylons which threaten to engulf our land to feed other countries and enrich international companies.
Exploited
The people of Sardinia are also fighting an ongoing battle to prevent yet more wind turbines despoiling their landscape to feed electricity to mainland Italy. (The Telegraph Magazine 26th October 2024) Like Wales, they are a poor country dependent on tourism and farming for a living. The mayor of Genoni in Sardinia says, ‘They are trying to “save the world” using the same system that got us into this mess.’
Wales has a history of being exploited for the benefit of others: coalmining, the iron industry, valleys flooded to create reservoirs. In the past, decisions affecting our country were all made by the British government. That the same heartless decisions are now being made by our own Welsh Government is unacceptable.
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