An Taisce produces a bi-annual magazine, which contains articles on An Taisce and the work that it is undertaking as well as articles of environmental importance.

Download the Summer 2007 edition here ...

Download the Spring 2007 edition here ...

Summer 2007 Editorial by Judy Osborne

Whichever government is now in power, and whoever is now Minister for the Environment, we can be sure that the next decade will be quite different from the
last. The pace of development has been frantic.  The housing and commercial
stock has doubled and unfortunately little of it is appropriate for the 21st century
with inevitable global warming and high energy and resource costs.  Leisure facilities
have also multiplied. Hotels, Spas and golf courses have sought to take advantage of new found wealth and the beautiful settings provided by the Irish landscape – and ofcourse all requiring enormous supplies of sand, stone and cement. These are the issues covered in this magazine, together with interesting contributions on these topics from experts in Northern Ireland.

All this building activity has put great strain on An Taisce, who, like national and local government, has had to gear up to meet the challenge set out in our constitution to promote the conservation, renewal and permanent preservation for the benefit of the nation, of land and buildings and other artefacts of architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social, technical or other relevant interest and, as far as practical, of nature and biodiversity.

As Lloyd Praeger, our founder, said nearly 60 years ago, “these things of beauty or of human interest need protection against dilapidation, against injury, whether caused by carelessness, ignorance or ruthlessness, against sequestration for private ends, and in recent times often against the action of public bodies”.

Whatever the government the problems seem to stay the same so we must be ready to respond. Hopefully many readers will make the trip to Galway on Saturday 23rd June for the AGM where everyone will have the chance to participate in preparing for the next big push towards more sustainable development.
Download the Summer 2007 edition here ...

Spring 2007 Editorial by Judy Osborne

Finally another magazine is ready. (sorry for the delay!) I notice that there is nothing much in this edition apparently about global warming whilst all around the national press are, at last, full of it. Yet in fact all of An Taisce’s work is about climate change and sustainable devlopment too. The planning issues involved in the building of new roads and uncontrolled urban sprawl, cleary outlined in Ian Lumley’s notes on pages 20 — 24. are closely related to issues ofglobal warming. Sprawling communities are extremely wasteful of limited resources and this pattern of development has led to Ireland being the most car dependent society, which will surely become a major issue as we struggle to cut emissions.
 
Another main feature in this edition is the importance of biodiversity. Why does it matter? What are we doing about it in Ireland and what are we doing about it in An Taisce? Hopefully the contributions in the magazine will help to link the global and local aspects for you.
 
Finally I would like to draw to your attention the book reviews - particularly the sequence around the theme of Rural Ireland and the Environmental Movement. Here is a description of half a dozen these that pick up on different areas. What I pick up from them all is a need to do better! Hopefully An Taisce will continue to rise to the challenge

Down load the Spring 2007 edition here ...