PIPPA HACKETT

Green Pippa Hackett, Senator and Super Junior Minister for Land Use and Biodiversity, is a voice for nature in the heart of the new government Shoots

"I was soon aware of the difficulties this decision posed. Some people couldn’t understand how I could be a Green politician and at the same time farm animals for meat while others couldn’t understand why a ‘farmer’ would want anything to do with the Green Party. And therein lies the problem…that the view of so many is that it is either farming or the environment and that it can never be both."

It was with overwhelming surprise, followed by much trepidation, that I was announced as the Minister of State for Land Use and Biodiversity in the newly formed government at the end of June. I entered politics less than five years ago, after having taken a lengthy career break from academia to rear my four children, now aged 17, 14, 12 and 9. My husband Mark and I have an organic beef and sheep farm in Co Offaly where we also have horses, hens, some forestry and an overgrown vegetable patch, which the insects love.

Farming is central to our lives and I feel privileged to have land to manage, animals to nurture and biodiversity to support in all its forms, above and below the ground. I love to look out across fields and hopefully see a fox or a buzzard and then think of all the thousands of different organisms all working away beneath my feet.

My entry into politics was the result of reading the Green Party election manifesto of 2016. As a farmer who was conscious of the environment and the ecological boundaries within which we must operate, I felt I was well placed to help the Party shake off that anti-rural, anti-farming image, which seems to follow it about like a bad smell. There are enough bad smells in the countryside at times, without adding a political party to that! I am rural, I am a farmer and I am green, so why not?

I was soon aware of the difficulties this decision posed. Some people couldn’t understand how I could be a Green politician and at the same time farm animals for meat while others couldn’t understand why a ‘farmer’ would want anything to do with the Green Party. And therein lies the problem…that the view of so many is that it is either farming or the environment and that it can never be both. But we need to find a way to make both work together and that in order to make proper progress, we need to work collectively. Ultimately our future and that of our planet depends on being able to do just that. Action on the environment and its biodiversity must be moved to the centre of government policies.

Unfortunately, this is neither quick nor easy. Take forestry for instance. Decades of a particular type and way of planting have left people and communities feeling robbed and abused, metaphorically, socially and environmentally. These issues have festered away, so much so that the number of appeals against the issuing of forestry licences have grown exponentially and have essentially ground the forestry sector here to a

 Pippa (centre) helping at the

Abbeyleix

Bog project!

halt. While some may view this as a victory, that at long last their justifiable concerns have been heard, it is a hollow one, because on the other side of the fence is a timber industry on the brink of collapse, native trees than cannot be planted and landowners and farmers who might never choose to plant trees again – even the right ones in the right places.

As with all aspects of life, balance is needed and some decisions can be painful ones to make. Political balance is perhaps the most difficult thing to achieve, that’s why it took the three coalition parties five weeks of intense negotiations to agree on a programme for government – it’s not perfect, but it is the greenest this country has ever seen. If I learnt anything from the negotiations process, it was that we will not please all of the people all of the time, but that we mustn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good – otherwise we are going nowhere and will remain in an endless polarised limbo of argument and disagreement. So while we absolutely need to be ambitious, we may need to have patience also. In order to blend environmental action with economics, both must support each other. That is a difficult message to sell and will be difficult to accomplish, yet we must try. Improving our damaged environment, restoring our biodiversity and cleaning our water and air must be prioritised. If we can produce a valuable carbon-friendly product as a result, then that will be the best of all worlds. Compromise in some form will always be necessary but that is life, that is politics and sometimes, it is the only way forward.