Time to get on your bike!

BRIAN Friel has signed the RSPB's Letter to the Future - a request that the government spends the money it is using to dig us out of the recession on ensuring long-term benefits for the environment.

“We were over the moon when both Brian Friel and Sinead Morrissey agreed to endorse the RSPB’s campaign,” said Dr James Robinson, Director, RSPB Northern Ireland.

“To have two literary greats supporting this very important initiative is a tremendous boost. It draws attention to how we need to cherish and nurture what we have now so that future generations will be able to enjoy and benefit from our actions.”

Brian Friel, dramatist, director and author has a long and illustrious career, including winning several international awards for his work, as well as being made a Saoi by members of the Aosdna, the foremost guild of artists in Ireland.

Having celebrated his 80th birthday last year, Friel said: “I have witnessed the changes which have taken place in the landscape in Ireland, as well as Northern Ireland, where I come from.

“It greatly concerns me that if we do not take steps to look after what we have now, there will be very little left for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“Birds like lapwing, curlew and corncrake were so common when I was young, that we could take them for granted. Now they are rarities, on the brink of extinction. It is imperative that we all do call attention to the plight that nature faces due to short-term economic gain. This is why I have signed the RSPB’s Letter to the Future.”

Sinead Morrissey, who has had incredible success with four collections of poems, said, “I feel passionately about the environment and to think that the wildlife that uses it might not be here in the future greatly worries me.

“I have two young children and want to make sure that the world they inherit is beautiful and alive. That is why I signed the Letter.”

The RSPB hopes to collect half a million signatures by the end of the year.

“It is our most ambitious campaign to date,” said Dr Robinson. “And we need every one to sign up to it to show government that people are worried about the long-term future of the environment.

“We have six asks, including the countryside to be restored, our seas to be safeguarded, the rainforests to be protected. Compared to the money they are using to dig the banks out of this recession, the cost of financing this is small beer, and it is critical that the investment goes in now.”

To sign up to the Letter to the Future go to: www.rspb.org.uk/letter or call the RSPB on 02890491547.