Offaly organisation launches campaign to ban tractor runs

An Offaly-based organisation is behind a new nationwide campaign to ban tractor runs.

Just Forests kicked started its nationwide ‘Ban Tractor Runs’ campaign in Tullamore on Thursday last with a protest at the intersection of Harbour Street and William Street.

It says the campaign will run through 2024 at randomly selected towns and villages from Malin Head to Roche’s Point.

Just Forests is an environmental/human-rights initiative, with Tullamore native Tom Roche as its founder and co-ordinator.

The organisation says the practice of hosting tractor runs, or of receiving funds generated by tractor runs by schools and charities in Ireland is as outdated as tobacco sponsorship would be to lung cancer patients.

It claims tractor runs show a disregard for education for sustainable development, the need for climate action and for health science.

“Regardless of how hard pressed the schools and the charities in question are for funding, tractor runs and the resulting carcinogenic emissions that ensues is seriously damaging to our personal and public health,” Just Forests said, in a statement.

Participating schools are not helping their pupils to think outside the box and prepare them for the challenging future that awaits them. They are in fact going against any hope of a just transition to a world where renewable energy becomes the norm. Furthermore, the ever-increasing decline in air quality because of fossil fuel emissions is a source of eco-anxiety and confusion for many school children.

“The medical and scientific evidence couldn’t be clearer; increased numbers of children with autism linked to air pollution - increased adult deaths linked to air pollution – increased numbers suffering from acute respiratory distress in children and adults.

Just Forests says that ambient air pollution in both cities and rural areas was estimated to cause 4.2 million premature deaths worldwide per year in 2019; this mortality is due to exposure to fine particulate matter, which causes cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and cancers.

Just Forests added: “Local charities must ask themselves if they really want to be associated with an activity that perpetuates the very illness, they so desperately try to help people cope with. School boards of management have an obligation to prepare their pupils for challenging times ahead through education for sustainable development.

“It is time to start to consider new ways of raising much needed funds for cancer care, etc, - projects that contribute to the cure rather than the cause.”