{"id":90,"date":"2021-04-21T18:01:05","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T18:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/?p=90"},"modified":"2021-04-21T18:30:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T18:30:43","slug":"hedgerows-what-is-the-big-deal-about-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/2021\/04\/21\/hedgerows-what-is-the-big-deal-about-them\/","title":{"rendered":"Hedgerows: what is the big deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Each year in Ireland under<em><u> Section 40 of the Wildlife Act 1976, as amended by Section 46 of the 2000 Amendment Act<\/u><\/em>, forbids the burning, cutting, grubbing, or destruction of vegetation, with certain strict exemptions, from 1 March up until the &nbsp;31 August. Some may think that the hedgerows one and only function is to divide the land. Although this is in fact true of a hedgerow it is in fact only a minor benefit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Agricultural Benefits<\/u><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Hedgerows can provide &nbsp;livestock with shelter and shade<\/li><li>Prevent soil erosion<\/li><li>Help reduce agricultural runoff affecting &nbsp;rivers and causing pollution.<\/li><li>Help reduce leaching<\/li><li>Help improve soil health and vegetation growth<\/li><li>Provide additional forage for livestock<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Ecological Benefits<\/u><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Hedgerows contain a wide variety of flora species, from trees to shrubs to flowers.<\/li><li>Play a vital role in maintaining &nbsp;and supporting biodiversity in Ireland<\/li><li>Provides shelter and food &nbsp;to a variety of fauna including birds, small mammals, and many insect species including pollinators<\/li><li>Ideal place for nesting and resting<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><u>Climate Benefits<\/u><\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Good hedgerows have been &nbsp;proven to be very effective at capturing Carbon- would highly recommend this study<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Ford, H., Healey, J.R., Webb, B., Pagella, T.F. and Smith, A.R., 2021. Hedgerow effects on CO2 emissions are regulated by soil type and season: Implications for carbon flux dynamics in livestock-grazed pasture. Geoderma, 382, p.114697<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Agroforestry is a strategy in place to help offset the carbon emitted from agriculture. It combines growing trees together with crops and\/or livestock. As such it is creating new hedgerows in areas where they were not originally or have since been removed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/120\/2021\/04\/Hedgerow.gif\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-92\" width=\"639\" height=\"359\" \/><figcaption>Image created by me <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each year in Ireland under Section 40 of the Wildlife Act 1976, as amended by Section 46 of the 2000&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plantagbiosciences.org\/people\/aislinn-mc-cormack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}