IWT NEWS
IWTNEWS Activity Update
By Kieran Flood, IWT Coordinator.
People for Bees, Botanic Gardens
flagship event, credit Jacinta Jardine
Biodiversity Week
Galway Woodland Walk Brimstone Butterfly
School planting,
credit Kieran Flood
Autumn is upon us and the short Irish summer has retreated once more. Summer is a great opportunity to get outside and explore our wonderful wildlife, and that is just what we have been doing at the IWT. Here is a brief update on our activities from the summer just passed. In this age where humanity’s severe impact on the planet is unquestionable, working with people is the only way we can save our wildlife. While at the IWT we continuously lobby for the essential change needed from our political leadership, we also greatly value the change that can be brought about by an informed and engaged public. So this summer, the IWT Staff, branches and volunteers were busy engaging thousands of people across Ireland with Irish wildlife and the conservation issues affecting it. Throughout summer we have been progressing our flagship projects “People for Bees” and “Bigger and Better”, our new marine protection project. We have been out and about running wildlife events with our wonderful branch network as well as meeting thousands of people at the Bloom in the Park festival. This National Biodiversity Week our branches and staff ran events highlighting woodland ecology, coastal seaweeds, Irish bats, peatland rehabilitation and marine protected areas. All events were free and open to the public. Biodiversity Week happens every May and is a great opportunity to engage the public with wildlife conservation issues. Although, that said, here at the IWT, it is biodiversity week every week and our branches run great events every month of the year. Notable events this summer were trips run by Dublin, Kerry and Galway branches to the Ireland’s Eye, Blasket and Inis Mor Islands. Our People for Bees project aims to educate the public about what they can do to help save our bees as well as support the All Ireland Pollinator Plan. This summer we ran our usual bee monitoring and habitat creation workshops. These were hosted by a diverse range of groups from Letterkenny IT, to Tidy Towns groups, the Tralee Bee
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Biodiversity Week Kilminchy
Wildlife Enhancement event, credit Brian Gaynor
Highway, community gardens and a community health forum. We also worked with school groups and ran a booked-out flagship bee training event at the National Botanic Gardens where we ran our largest outdoor bee training session to date, taking almost 100 people around the gardens to practise their bee monitoring skills. People are the key to this aspect of the Irish Wildlife Trust work. We would like to thank our branches and other volunteers, the communities that hosted our workshops as well as all the IWT members that came out to our events. It is always great to see familiar faces and meet members in person.
Mailing List To keep up to date with future events, join our digital mailing list to receive a monthly events update. You can join by adding your email to the box on our homepage, www.iwt.ie. If you would like more information on branches, People for Bees or Bigger and Better campaigns, see our website.
Irish Wildlife Autumn ‘19
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31/10/2019 12:57
