From top: Killarney National Park on April 26; Dan Boyle

It has been pitiful this week to watch fires raging at Killarney National Park, across Slieve Donard, and in several other locations.

Even more pitiful has been the howls of outrage that have accompanied these events. That these fires are happening isn’t a surprise. They are occurring every year with astonishing consistency.

The why and the likely who are behind these fires is also well known. They aren’t being caused by members of the Irish Society for Mountain Barbecues. Nor are they being caused by fans of that illusive punk group, Disaffected Youth.

These fires are being started overwhelmingly by land owners who see these natural habitats as a massive inconvenience against their commercial enterprises.

The system, as it exists, not only fails to prosecute those who engage in what on paper is an illegal activity, it financially rewards those who help bring about this ecological damage.

Agricultural payments get made on the percentage of a farm’s land area that is deemed productive. Lands covered in gorse have plants growing that aren’t given an economic value. They consume space that could be more valuable if used for grazing animals. In the perverse logic of agri economics burning this land gives it a greater value.

Outside of the willingness to prosecute has been the capacity to do so. One of the less acknowledged provisions of the current programme for government was the commitment to review the operations of the National Parks and Wildlife Service. This is currently underway. The hope is that we can a wildlife and nature agency that has greater sense of purpose and a stronger ability to achieve.

As a response to this week’s necklace of fires Minister for State with responsibility for Heritage, Malcolm Noonan, has promised to vastly increase the number of NPWS rangers, quickening any training to allow for earliest deployment.

More bodies on the ground can only be a good thing. More powers would be better. Having a legislatively weak NPWS has helped create a culture of impotence that has to be stemmed.

Environmental law breaking in Ireland, in being seen as serious and in being prosecuted, is treated as seriously as white collar is, which of course is not very seriously at all.

To stop the horrendous practice of gorse fires we should develop a turp(entine) walk. Identifiable perpetrators being dealt with by the judicial process in the most public way possible. Shame should inspire an end to the practice.

While farmers are most responsible for these files, they are not representative of all or even most farmers. There are encouraging signs that farmers organisations are acknowledging that this fire setting is a problem and needs to be called out.

Until we can to get to a place where anti-environment is seen as anti-social there will always be those whose self interest will always be valued more than the common good.

The challenge is of how to stop the burning desire of those ingrates from being a desire to burn.

Dan Boyle is a former Green Party TD and Senator and serves as a Green Party councillor on Cork City Council. His column appears here every Thursday. Follow Dan on Twitter: @sendboyle

Pic via Patrick O’Connor