News of farming and wildlife group is welcomed across province (1987)

The Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group Northern Ireland (FWAG NI) was officially launched at Balmoral, its chairman, Rowan McGhie, said: “FWAG (Nl) is an independent group which will offer environmental advice to interested farmers.”

Vice-chairman Robert Hanna said a top priority was the appointment of a full time conservation adviser by April 1988.

A manned exhibit at the Balmoral Show was to be the venue for a survey to help identify priority areas.

Mr Hanna said: “The group also hopes to identify a number of farms where active conservation work is being carried out. In the longer term, we hope to arrange farm visits.

“Quite a number of people have already asked for advice. We hope, in the short term, to publicise competitions open to everyone in the United Kingdom and, in 1989, to launch our own competitions.”

According to Mr Hanna, the group hoped to discuss funding with the FWAG Trust, but did not consider money an insurmountable problem.

“The aims and objectives are clean FWAG (Nl) is a partnership; it will help find common ground. It will not be a political body,” he said.

Outlining the activities of the Eire Farming and Conservation Group, Mr Richard Webb said that although the aims were similar, it did engage in some political lobbying.

He said: “We have found an increasing awareness among farmers of the importance of conservation, and vice versa. We launched an award scheme 10 days ago and already we have received 300 entries, some of them from Northern Ireland.”

Major William Brownlow, of the British Field Sports Society, said the group was doing “a difficult job skilfully”, and he hoped it would have a great future.

The immediate past-president of the Ulster Young Farmers' Clubs Clarke Black remarked to Farming Life: “Good farming and conservation have been going together for years.”

Farming Life noted that a visit to Northern Ireland in 1986 by national FWAG adviser Eric Carter had provided the impetus for launch.

Mr Carter said: “If the Northern Ireland countryside is not looked after it will not be the same in 10 years time. Apathy is the greatest single danger.”

But Mrs Dinah Brown, regional member of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said of FWAG (Nl): “This gives us encouragement. Northern Ireland is already responding to the group.”

National FWAG chairman Dudley Reeves said 64 farming and wildlife advisory groups and farming, forestry and wildlife advisory groups had been established in the rest of the United Kingdom since 1969.

“Managing the countryside needs expertise and advice just as much as growing crops or keeping livestock,” he said. “Farming and farmers are going to have to adapt to the changes in demand for food, and the pressure for access to the countryside for recreation.

“These changes will be different in various parts of the country and it is important that they reflect and take into account local needs.”

Membership of the Northern Ireland group was to be drawn from farming, forestry, landscape, wildlife, archaeological and recreational interests, together with Agriculture and Environment Department representatives.

Countryside Commission chairman Sir Derek Barber described the new group as a marriage between public and private interests.

As a past chairman of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and former member of the BBC's Central Agricultural Committee he had been a regular visitor to Northern Ireland.

In launching FWAG (NI), Sir Derek said the visits had made him aware of the marvellous diversity of landscape and wildlife habitats.

The North Antrim Coast, Rathlin Island and Castlecaldwell had, for him, “outstanding charm and value”.

Sir Derek said: “The success as measured by the national organisation being established and the solid progress on the farms is a measure, obviously, of burgeoning public concerns over environmental protection.”

He continued: “But it is also a measure of two other elements – the willingness of many farmers, naturalists and countrymen to make FWAG work and the quality of the countryside advisers who came to be appointed in the counties.

“There is, perhaps, another issue to emphasise: FWAG is a marriage between the public and private interest in terms of both effort on the ground and funding.”

He concluded: “Northern Ireland has a wonderful countryside heritage. Today sees another goodly step in its protection and management.”