Our waterways are in crisis. Only about 1% of Ireland’s rivers and streams are pristine; down from nearly 15% in the 1980s. Despite a legal obligation to achieve “good” status for our waterways by 2027, we’ve hovered around only 55% of waterways at this status since 1987. The targets aren’t just to keep within EU law; they are essential to being rebuilding habitat for vulnerable aquatic wildlife and for helping support Irish biodiversity and for our own water quality needs. So if we’ve tried for nearly 30 years to achieve improvements in water quality with essentially zero success, why should…
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Our waterways are in crisis. Only about 1% of Ireland’s rivers and streams are pristine; down from nearly 15% in the 1980s. Despite a legal obligation to achieve “good” status for our waterways by 2027, we’ve hovered around only 55% of waterways at this status since 1987. The targets aren’t just to keep within EU law; they are essential to rebuilding habitat for vulnerable aquatic wildlife and for helping support Irish biodiversity and for our own water quality needs. So if we’ve tried for nearly 30 years to achieve improvements in water quality with essentially zero success, why should we…
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Video from Feidhlim’s talk at the recent Skerries Eco Night – Turning the Tide Together – what can we do; Sept 28th 2024. Slides to this event are below:
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Féidhlim Harty explores the potential for (re)introductions of beavers into the Irish landscape – and offers some workarounds for doing their work while we wait. Published in Horticulture Connected on June 6, 2024 (link below). Without wanting to overstate the obvious: beavers are amazing landscape engineers. For those new to the subject, these small, vegetarian, water-loving animals play a role within the landscape that is way above what you’d expect from their shy, secluded demeanours. The dams that beavers build in rivers and streams are just the right design for flood prevention; holding water during downpours and then allowing some…
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Interview with Bridget Ginnity in the Clare Champion July 17th 2022 (link below). Féidhlim Harty, director of an environmental consultancy company tells Bridget Ginnity, how being a bad windsurfer led him to specialising in reed bed system design and other eco-friendly sewage options. Feidhlim Harty at his farm pond where he grows wetland plants and willows for waterway re-wilding and wetland projects. Photograph by John Kelly For as long as I can remember, my family was interested in environmental things of various sorts, whether it was beach clean-ups, chemical or sewage pollution in Cork Harbour area. My grandmother was Myrtle…
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First published in Horticulture Connected on May 19, 2021. Link below. Féidhlim Harty explores the boundless potential of and benefits from creating river corridors throughout our countryside Perfect Storm Globally we are in a perfect storm; and I’m not referring to the Covid pandemic. On many different levels, Earth’s health indices are at critical levels. Climate breakdown isextensively publicised, but is compounded with multiple other issues. Biodiversity losses are so great that it is claimed that we have entered the sixth mass extinction event on our planet. Our current trajectory feels akin to sawing off the branch we are sitting…
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First published by the Permaculture Association (https://www.permaculture.org.uk/articles/permaculture-sewage-treatment-first-aid-and-future-proofing-our-rivers-and-seas). Well actually, it wasn’t in the hay barn, nor with a broken roof tile. But Ophelia is guilty for something alright. The recent storms downed electricity lines around Ireland and the UK. One of the impacts was an interruption to sewage treatment systems. So what? Not as important as missing the Sunday game, you may argue. Well, for the fish, aquatic insects, birdlife, animals and people living downstream of malfunctioning sewage treatment systems it can be quite serious indeed. Life or death in some cases. If we want to create sustainable, healthy systems…
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First published for Feasta on April 26th, 2016, reproduced here in full. Link to original article below. Introduction Closed loop agriculture is farming practice that recycles all nutrients and organic matter material back to the soil that it grew in. This forms part of an agricultural practice that preserves the nutrient and carbon levels within the soil and allows farming to be carried out on a sustainable basis. Current farming practice (as shown in Figure 1) relies heavily on imported nutrients to sustain high production. We eat the food; and then the nutrients and biomass from faeces and urine are…
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An in depth interview with Féidhlim Harty from FH WETLAND SYSTEMS Ltd. The Council Journal speaks to Mr. Harty regarding his new book as well as how best to use waste as a resource… First published in the Council Journal on 15th April 2015 (https://council.ie/harnessing-waste-as-a-resource/). Feidhlim, congratulations on the recent publication of your very well-received new book – Septic Tank Options and alternatives. The book has been praised for offering a comprehensive guide to a wide range of sewage treatment options for households and businesses. What general advice can you give to environmentally-conscious homeowners and business owners looking at the…
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Published for Feasta on 19th Sept 2014 (https://www.feasta.org/2014/09/19/sustainable-water-use/) Like many things in modern life, the vast majority of our current water and wastewater infrastructure is completely dependant upon fossil energy to keep the toilets flushed and the taps running. Even the word “wastewater” itself assumes that we have no better use for the water that we flush out of our homes or the nutrients and biomass it contains than to dump it. In a truly sustainable society, “sewage” would be a word of the past, and we would begin to hear terms not typically used in today’s media like “humanure”…