Up to 6,000km of hedgerows are being destroyed in Ireland every year, the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food has heard.
The committee was also told that farmers should get payments for the maintenance of carbon absorbing hedgerows, which should also get legal protection.
Ireland's hedgerows are a valuable resource, sequestering carbon, protecting bio-diversity and defining our rural landscapes. That was the message to the agriculture committee yesterday evening when it was addressed by members of Hedgerows Ireland.
However, Dr Alan Moore, Secretary, Hedgerows Ireland said that up to 6,000km of hedgerows are being destroyed every year even though the value of hedgerows is now acknowledged.
"It is now accepted that the net economic, climate, biodiversity and social benefits of hedgerows on farms fully justify the land they occupy, including in tillage and intensive dairy farms where losses are often greatest."
Early indications from Teagasc on measuring the carbon sequestering ability of hedgerows indicate they may store 600,000 tonnes with the potential to store 1 million tonnes or more, if removal ceases and farmers and others avoid excessive and severe cutting, Dr Moore said.
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In terms of biodiversity, he said two thirds of our native bird species either feed, nest or both in hedgerows and they are home to over 600 or our 800 flowering plants.
Despite the annual loss of hedgerows, the committee was told there are an estimated 700,000km of hedgerow in Ireland, but there is no legal obligation to conserve or protect them, apart from annual nesting season cutting restrictions, and there are even exceptions to those.
Donal Sheehan, a dairy farmer from North Cork, who is involved in a local environmental and sustainable food programme that financially incentivises farmers to retain space for nature, such as hedgerows, told the committee all farmers should get payments for sustainable management of their hedgerow boundaries.
"We want farmers to start managing their hedgerows and get everyone singing off the same hymn sheet. There needs to be a payment for these habitats because there is no value on them, we don't have legal protections on them.
"We're perceived as being the damagers or destroyers of the environment, but you can't blame farmers.
"This is the price of cheap food production where habitats are being removed purely to increase food production and until there is some sort of protection and some sort of value put on our hedgerows and all our other natural habitats, this will continue."
Hedgerows Ireland also told the committee they are concerned about oversight of agricultural cross compliance requirements to plant equivalent lengths of new hedgerows, in advance of taking out existing ones.
Shirley Clerkin, Heritage officer, Monaghan County Council, who has been involved with extensive hedgerow surveying, explained that older larger hedgerows, some in existence for centuries, have a much greater environmental benefit than newly established examples.
"Older hedges are better. They are longer established and they have more species diversity in them.
"Townland boundaries particularly have more species diversity in them because they often go right back to Gaelic times.
"They are early medieval boundaries, and the enclosure of fields for agriculture thereafter are a little bit more modern but still really important for biodiversity.
"Planting new hedgerows where none exist is always a good thing but to keep what we have and to improve them is more important."
Michael Hickey, a beef farmer and member of Hedgerows Ireland, lamented the fact Ireland's hedgerows are not valued enough when the worlds CO2 levels are continuing to rise.
"We have this jewel in front of us in our hedgerows that we can claim as carbon sequestration and we're not using it, we're not counting it."
