NPWS slam illegal campers at Wexford beauty spot – ‘The sense of entitlement is staggering’
An illegal camp, found abandoned in the Raven Nature Reserve on Sunday morning.
Illegal campers risked a huge fire at one of the south east's best loved nature reserves at the weekend, having set a campfire between the dunes and the woods at Raven Point.
With Wexford having seen a lot of dry weather and sunshine of late, NPWS staff are always on the look-out for anything that might just spark a fire ripping through the woods. We’ve seen several high-profile fires both in the Raven Woods and at Curracloe Beach in recent years, recuperation taking a long time in each case.
It was for this reason that NPWS officers were infuriated to come across an abandoned makeshift camp just outside the woods on Sunday, those responsible having lit a campfire and left a trail of debris behind them.
“This is what staff have to greet them on a Sunday morning,” an angry post read.
“Not only have you camped in a Nature Reserve, where no camping or fires are allowed, but you have abandoned all your mess and just walked away.
Rubbish scattered everywhere from an illegal campsite in the Raven Nature Reserve.
“A Nature Reserve is for nature. For the enjoyment and the protection of nature, for animals, plants and people. The sense of entitlement you must have to treat our natural environment like this is staggering. Also, to treat people like this as we have staff down at the Raven now clearing up all this rubbish.
“The Raven is an amenity for all, but first and foremost it is a nature reserve,” the statement concluded. “We have to respect our natural spaces or we will lose them.”
Back in April, NPWS also warned about “bushcraft shelters” being set in the Raven Woods, which they described as “forest fires waiting to happen”.
