Irish Wildlife Trust Spring 2021

ISSN - 1649 - 5705 • SPRING ’21

IRISH MAGAZINE OF THE IRISH WILDLIFE TRUST

ND’S A L E IR

SLIT BIE FE LD E W

AZIN MAG

The

PLUS WHAT’S KEEPING GORDON D’ARCY BUSY DURING COVID?

Curlew Calls

SPOTTED IN IRELAND: • GREY MINING BEE • CURLEW • FOX

UNDERSTANDING THE MIRACLE OF OYSTERS

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WILDLIFE CRIME

FOREST PEOPLE

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WELCOME

Chairman’s Comment

ISSN - 1649 - 5705 • SPRING ’21

G

IRISH MAGAZINE OF THE IRISH WILDLIFE TRUST

ND’S IRELA

STE BE LDLIF E WI

ZIN MAGA

The

PLUS WHAT’S KEEPING GORDON D’ARCY BUSY DURING COVID?

Curlew Calls

SPOTTED IN IRELAND: • GREY MINING BEE • CURLEW • FOX

UNDERSTANDING THE MIRACLE OF OYSTERS

OFC_IWT Spring_2021_Cover_V2.indd 1

WILDLIFE CRIME

FOREST PEOPLE

Cover credit: Stoat by,AGAMI stock

19/02/2021 14:26

Contents page credits: See page 35

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Opinions and comments expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. While every effort has been made to ensure that all information contained in this publication is factual and correct at time of going to press, Ashville Media Group and the Irish Wildlife

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Please recycle this copy of Irish Wildlife

reetings from all in IWT! I hope this magazine finds you and yours in good form and getting on with things the best you can throughout these tough times. It has been a difficult 12 months for many but hopefully, just like the lengthening spring days, things are beginning to look more positive. In the meantime, let’s all keep our guard up and respect the distances that we are permitted to travel within for non-essential purposes.

With continued buy-in from the public, ongoing vaccination roll-out and just a wee bit of luck, we will hopefully be out and about noticing and engaging with nature in the not-too-distant future.

It has been a busy start to 2021 in the Irish conservation arena. On a positive note, the long overdue strategic review of National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) was announced. This was an action agreed under the Programme for Government and aims to examine the role, status and crucially, the level of funding that the agency receives. With proper resourcing, recognition and defined purpose, the agency has the potential to not just to oversee our legal obligations regarding wildlife and habitat protection, but also to be a major player and innovator of ambitious projects to conserve and rehabilitate our damaged landscapes and ecosystems.

A strong independent conservation agency with a clear remit and guaranteed levels of funding would have the ability to bring other state agencies, eNGOS and communities together to promote and implement actions that will benefit biodiversity and people’s lives. The IWT looks forward to the final report and recommendations.

Over the last number of weeks, the spotlight has once again been shone on the actions of the Office of Public Works (OPW) regarding watercourse ‘management’ and their legal requirements under the archaic Arterial Drainage Act of 1945. This piece of legislation, requiring the creation and maintenance of drainage schemes and management of watercourses, was introduced at a time of post-war food shortages and subsistence farming, with the aim of boosting farmland productivity and tackling poverty amongst farming families.

Today, these circumstances have changed and the natural role of land and watercourses in controlling flooding are understood, yet the OPW are still legally obliged to continue these destructive works, often in

the absence of proper ecological assessment. The clearing of drains, channelisation of watercourses and removal of riparian vegetation has destroyed whole river systems, exasperates flooding and destroys valuable habitats, impacting on biodiversity. The IWT recently organised a petition to reform this Act, attracting over 4,500 signatures at the time of printing. Thanks to all of you who have signed. Our Campaigns Officer, Pádraic Fogarty, talks more about this issue, and the NPWS review, in our ‘Campaign Update’ section.

Dealing with wildlife crime has been a long-neglected issue in Ireland and is discussed in a piece by Paul Gallagher. The recent commitment by Minister Darragh O’Brien to create a dedicated Wildlife Crime Unit within An Garda Síochána is very welcome and we look forward to seeing how the NPWS and the Gardaí will collaborate to tackle this scourge. The implementation of wildlife law in Ireland has always been weak with laughable penalties being handed to the few who are actually brought to justice. Hopefully, the establishment of this new unit will send out a clear message that wildlife crime will not be tolerated.

Speaking of wildlife and the law, we are now into March and the start of bird nesting season, which runs until August 31st. Please keep an eye out in your locality for illegal hedge cutting, scrub removal, vegetation burning etc and report such actions to NPWS and the Gardaí. Also, let us know in IWT about it. Although actions are unlikely to be taken against those committing these offences, by continuing to report these activities to the authorities, we prove that the public are aware of the law and are concerned and angered about the consequences for our biodiversity.

This spring edition brings you a variety of informative and thought-provoking articles. Stay in touch with the IWT by following us on social media and checking our website for details of upcoming webinars and talks.

Also check out Pádraic Fogarty’s series ‘Shaping New Mountains’, available on our website www.iwt.ie and also on Apple and Spotify podcasts.

Stay safe and enjoy the read.

Seán Meehan, Chairman, Irish Wildlife Trust

Pass it on. If you’re finished with your Irish Wildlife don’t throw it in the bin. Pass it on to someone who you think may enjoy it – or ask your local library or doctor’s office to leave it in the reception. You’ll help the environment and the IWT while you’re at it. Irish Wildlife has a new cover to make it 100% recyclable, so if you do choose to throw it out, please put it in the green bin.

Irish Wildlife Spring ‘21

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FIELD REPORT

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CONTENTS

Contents 4.

ABOUT US

Discover more about the work of the IWT and how you can get involved.

5. CONSERVATION NEWS

Tim Clabon compiles the latest national and international news from the conservation world.

7. SUSTAINABLE AQUACULTURE

Regina Classen looks at how aquaculture in Ireland could be compatible with Marine Protected Areas

10.

I WT NEWS

Updates on some of IWT’s campaign work

16. THE CURLEW CALLS

Can cultural memory help save the Curlew, by Michelle Carey

20. THE MIRACLE OF OYSTERS

A project in Co. Wicklow hopes to re-establish once-expansive oyster reefs off the east coast.

22. STONE ART

Gordon D’Arcy gets creative during lockdown

26. SPRING FOCUS

Billy Flynn looks at the great work being doing by Tidy Towns groups across Ireland

28. CITIZEN SCIENCE

Some tips on creating habitat for our endangered bees

30. POCKET FORESTS

Catherine Cleary writes about her project to bring more trees to the city

32. WILDLIFE CRIME

A new group hopes to bring a greater focus on illegal activities

34. PHOTO COMPETITION

Check out the best of IWT members’ photos

36. COMPETITION

Be in with a chance to win a new book on Irish rivers

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IRISH WILDLIFE TRUST

About Us The Irish Wildlife Trust was founded in 1979 and aims to conserve wildlife and the habitats it depends on throughout Ireland, while encouraging a greater understanding and appreciation of the natural world.

The IWT is dedicated to creating a better future for Ireland’s wildlife through: Motivating and supporting people to take action for wildlife.

Education and raising awareness of all aspects of Irish wildlife and conservation issues.

Research of the natural environment.

Acquiring and managing nature reserves to safeguard species and habitats.

Lobbying decision-makers at all levels to promote policy in Ireland that provides a sustainable future for wildlife and people.

Working in partnership with other organisations to achieve results that matter for conservation.

The IWT encourages action at a local level and has a number of branches around the country: Dublin: dublinbranch@iwt.ie facebook.com/DublinBranchIrishWildlife Trust, dubliniwt.blogspot.ie Waterford: Denis Cullen, iwtwaterfordbranch@gmail.com, deniscullen@eircom.net, irishwildlifetrust. blogspot.ie Kerry: Ger, iwtkerry@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/KerryIWT Galway: Dan, iwtgalway@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/IWTgalwaybranch Laois/Offaly: Ricky, iwtlaoisoffaly@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/IWTlaoisoffalybranch

Irish Wildlife is published quarterly by the IWT.

IMAGES THIS PAGE: TOP: Pocket Forests ABOVE: Curlew, M Brown

HAVE COMMENTS? Editor: Pádraic Fogarty Magazine queries email: editor@iwt.ie Information on campaigning and policies email: irishwildlife@iwt.ie Snail mail: The Irish Wildlife Trust, 8 CABRA ROAD, DUBLIN 7, D07 T1W2 Web: www.iwt.ie Social media: facebook.com/IrishWildlifeTrust twitter.com/Irishwildlife instagram.com/irishwildlifetrust/

HOW CAN YOU HELP? You, our members, make the IWT what it is. Through your subscriptions and support we can undertake the projects that are benefiting Ireland’s wildlife. If you would like to help more, here’s what you can do: • Make a one-off donation to the IWT. • Give IWT membership as a gift.

• Volunteer – we are always looking for people to help out. There are lots of ways to get involved, from helping with important admin work in our office to helping us increase membership by volunteering at public events. See our website www.iwt.ie for details or contact the office directly.

• Do you have land that you would like used for conservation? We are always on the lookout to establish new sites to enhance wildlife or provide education opportunities.

• Remember us in your will. Why not leave a lasting legacy towards conserving Ireland’s natural heritage? The IWT uses all funds towards our campaigns, managing reserves and our education programmes. Please visit www.mylegacy.ie.

• Set up a branch. Are you passionate about wildlife and are in a county that does not have an IWT branch? Contact the office and we can give you the support you need to get up and running.

Keep up to date on all the latest news from the Irish Wildlife Trust on www.iwt.ie 4

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CONSERVATION NEWS

CONSERVATION NEWS

The latest national and international news from the conservation world, compiled by Tim Clabon

IRISH NEWS



Rivers

2019 Water Indicators

ONLY

22

Infographic from EPA

highest quality sites left

Rivers

Rivers Changes in biological quality of rivers surveyed in 2019

204 90

improved in biological quality declined in biological quality

57% 43%

47% of sites have unsatisfactory nitrate concentrations

Biological quality

satisfactory

Nitrogen

Phosphorus

44%

of sites have increasing concentrations

26%

of sites have increasing concentrations

Estuarine and Coastal

Lakes

Nutrient trends 2013-19

Lake biological quality

54%

34%

Riverine inputs of nitrogen and phosphorus increasing since 2012-2014

24% 31%

are in good or high quality

of sites have unsatisfactory phosphate concentrations

27

%

increase in loads of Nitrogen

increase in loads of Phosphorus

of lakes have unsatisfactory total phosphorus concentrations

unsatisfactory

Groundwater

8%

of sites have unsatisfactory phosphate concentrations (greater than 0.035mg/l P)

22%

of sites have high nitrate concentrations (greater than 25mg/l NO3)

49%

of sites have increasing nitrate concentrations

Warning on water quality Infographic from EPA

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published the Water Quality Indicators Report 2019 in December of 2020. The report gives an assessment on Ireland’s surface water and groundwater quality for the previous year. Its findings concluded that the main threat to water quality was the presence of too many nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen coming from agriculture and wastewater. Over one third of rivers and a quarter of lakes were found to be failing to meet their environmental quality standards for nutrients. Over one fifth of our groundwater, estuarine and coastal water bodies have high nitrogen concentrations. However, just over half of rivers and lakes are in high or good biological quality. The rivers surveyed in 2019

“We need urgent and effective action to ensure that the decline in water quality is halted and to restore those water bodies that have declined in quality.”

have shown more improvements than declines overall, which is welcome. The report notes that further action is needed to return waters to a satisfactory condition and while good news in general, species such as the freshwater pearl mussel continues to be under threat.

Commenting on the assessment, EPA Director Dr Micheál Lehane, said: “Clean, healthy water is essential for our economy, our aquatic wildlife and for our health and wellbeing. However, this assessment shows that our water environment remains under considerable pressure from human activities.

Of most concern is the continued upward trend of nitrate concentrations. The problem is particularly evident in the south and

southeast of the country where the main source is agriculture.

“We need urgent and effective action to ensure that the decline in water quality is halted and to restore those water bodies that have declined in quality.”

Mary Gurrie, Programme Manager, added: “Elevated nutrient concentrations are contributing to pollution in our freshwaters and estuaries and causing difficulties with drinking water standards in some areas. Urgent action is now needed to reduce nutrient inputs from agriculture. Measures need to be targeted at the critical source areas where nitrogen and phosphate problems occur.

There is a lot of good work happening at a local level to improve water quality and this needs to be scaled up to deliver the improvements needed.

“The River Basin Management Plan, the new Common Agricultural Policy Strategic Plan and the full implementation of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy offer significant opportunities to achieve improvements in water quality, while delivering multiple benefits for the environment including for climate, air quality and biodiversity.”

The report is available on the EPA website and the accompanying data used in the water quality assessments are available on www.catchments.ie.

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CONSERVATION NEWS

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Brexit worries for nature

Brexit has been on the mind of many, mostly concerned with trade and transportation. But what impact will Brexit have on wildlife in the UK now they have left the EU? The EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), which sets a level playing field for trade between the UK and the EU, ties in each area’s commitment to achieving a carbon neutral economy by 2050. It also suggests that the protection afforded to areas under the Birds and Habitats Directives will remain in place. However, it is light on mechanisms on how this will be achieved and what funding will be available to maintain and improve conservation. It is early days and while the TCA sets out a non-regression commitment on environmental protection commitments made before the UK left the EU, none of these have yet been enshrined in UK law. However, the UK is also obliged to honour its commitments to the various international conventions and agreements on a range of wildlife and environmental issues. Despite a certain UK politician's opinion that fish belong to one area, fish, along with many other species, move freely between areas and cooperation between the EU and UK will still be required, along with joint conservation efforts to protect biodiversity.

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As seen recently with an Irish trawler being stopped from fishing by a Scottish Fisheries Protection Vessel off the Rockall Island, the split from the EU is likely to cause tensions to rise in areas where there is competition for diminishing natural resources. This sadly is a pattern seen globally (and sometimes even within the EU). There is still uncertainty how the UK intends to keep its commitments to environmental and nature conservation. As has been seen with goods transported to and from the UK, there seems to be much confusion.

Only time will tell how this will play out and what role the UK will take in future activities concerning the environment and natural resources.

Trouble in the Med Native mollusc populations along the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean are believed to have collapsed by 88% in soft subtidal habitats and by 95% on rocky habitats, compared to historical species richness of the area. The collapse is thought to be due to the species intolerance of warmer water. The study lead by Paolo G. Albano, University of Vienna also raises concerns for neighbouring ecosystems

Fishing boat off the

coast of Ullapool in the Highlands of Scotland, Pre-Brexit.

and the sharp decline seen in this region may be replicated off other coasts in the Mediterranean. This study marks the most devastating regional loss of ocean life attributed to climate change. To further compound the loss of native species from this area, the few native mollusc species that remain are struggling for survival. They were found to be widely scattered and 60% failed to grow to reproductive size.

The study was carried out along the shores of Israel, one of the hottest parts of the Mediterranean. Between 1980 and 2013, the area experienced a temperature increase of 3˚C. The average surface temperature was 32˚C. It is believed that this triggered the decline of the native mollusc populations, which is a pattern previous studies in other areas have shown. Scientists involved in the research fear that native biodiversity loss around the Mediterranean will increase and expand, being replaced by species entering the Mediterranean from the Indo-pacific via the Suez Canal, leading to a situation where restoring the natural ecosystem will not be possible.

Reference: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/ doi/10.1098/rspb.2020.2469

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MARINE CONSERVATION

Common blue mussels can be a

sustainable form of aquaculture

Bigger and better

MPA

AQUACULTURE AND MARINE PROTECTED AREAS – ARE THEY MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE? REGINA CLASSEN INVESTIGATES Irish Wildlife Spring ‘21

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MARINE CONSERVATION

Example of IMTA system. Taken from Holdt

and Edwards (2013) Cost-effective IMTA: a comparison of the production efficiencies of mussels and seaweed

A

are now in place, however the quality is poor while in oyster farming, heavy machinery and quaculture describes the act of and adverse effects of aquaculture operations boat use disturb wildlife and displaces birds. This farming fish, shellfish or seaweed are often dismissed based on weak scientific non-exhaustive list of impacts is not in line with in water. It is a relatively young arguments. Ireland still has not fulfilled other what an MPA should be. industry compared to farming on aspects of European environmental law, land and is therefore far behind in Mussel farming is generally considered a very including the need for management measures low impact activity. However, just like all knowledge on breeding technology, to be put in place in all marine protected areas, bivalves, mussels filter the water for food and disease management, feed ingredients and so another ECJ case was announced last year. excrete inedible particles which can accumulate low-impact systems. The main species farmed Clearly, the industry is facing many problems on the seafloor, smothering organisms that live in Irish waters are Atlantic salmon, Pacific oysters and mussels and they there. In the Roaringwater Bay Special come with numerous Area of Conservation, for example, a " MUSSEL FARMING IS GENERALLY environmental impacts. rare and protected algae community Most fish and shellfish deteriorated due to the presence of CONSIDERED A VERY LOW IMPACT farms in Ireland are located mussel longlines directly above the ACTIVITY. HOWEVER, JUST LIKE inside our existing inshore algae beds. In the shallow waters of ALL BIVALVES, MUSSELS FILTER THE network of Marine Protected our inshore bays, even such low WATER FOR FOOD AND EXCRETE Areas (MPAs). This means impact activity can have damaging INEDIBLE PARTICLES WHICH CAN additional risk assessments effects – an outcome that the risk ACCUMULATE ON THE SEAFLOOR, are necessary to ensure assessment did not predict. activities have no adverse Given the environmental impacts SMOTHERING ORGANISMS THAT effects on protected habitats of current practices, it is most LIVE THERE." or species. This detail has undesirable for the industry to been overlooked by Ireland expand any further (especially not in the past, which caused a inside MPAs) unless practices change and yet it is expected to expand. Some of the drastically. A lot of this has to do with spatial European Court of Justice (ECJ) case in 2008 environmental impacts of salmon farming planning – doing things in the right places at to order Ireland to put the necessary risk include pollution of the water and sediment from the right time and without exceeding the limits assessments in place before licencing any food waste and faeces and spread of parasites, that the natural systems can support. new aquaculture activity. These assessments

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CONSERVATION NEWS

So, what are the options?

In the first instance, finfish aquaculture should be moved away from inshore areas either further offshore or onto recirculating systems on land. For shellfish production, it’s important to build hatcheries to avoid dredging of wild mussels to stock farms. In order to ensure a sustainable future, the below options describe two methods of working with nature that may be compatible with MPAs, if managed well.

1. AVOID MONOCULTURE SYSTEMS Growing multiple species together is a much more natural way of farming and can help reduce some of the impacts of monoculture farms.

Integrated multitrophic aquaculture (IMTA) may be the method of the future. It is ‘integrated’ because multiple species are farmed together and ‘multitrophic’ because the species are chosen based on their trophic level (i.e. the position an organism occupies in the food web e.g. plant eater, meateater, scavenger etc.). The aim is that one species’ waste serves as the food of another. For example, scavengers such as sea cucumbers may be grown on the seafloor below salmon cages in order to remove any fallen waste, while ropes with filter-feeding mussels and seaweed are grown around the cages to remove excess nutrients, minerals and floating organic particles. The Marine Institute

is currently trialling IMTA at its aquaculture research site in Lehanagh Pool in Connemara, Co Galway. Salmon are being reared on site, with scallops and seaweed growing alongside them and helping to remove the organic inputs in the water.

2. USE AVAILABLE FUNDING SCHEMES TO PAY FARMERS TO RESTORE BIODIVERSITY Finally, farmers could draw down funding from the EU and use their know-how in shellfish production to actively restore keystone species to areas where we know they were lost. Restoration of oyster and mussel reefs, for example, can be a win for biodiversity, providing a future income to the local community if restored beds are harvested sustainably and with areas set aside as no-take zones. In Spain’s Veta la Palma nature reserve, a large restored wetland with artificial ponds is used to farm fish and shellfish while providing important breeding and feeding habitat for birds and many other species.

Around 20% of the fish in Veta la Palma is eaten by birds and yet the system provides enough seafood to make it commercially viable. This type of low-impact extensive farming with nature is compatible with MPAs and should be championed by the industry and government to ensure future

For more information on our Bigger and Better campaign for MPAs, please visit https://iwt.ie/what-we-do/campaigns/bigger-better/

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IWT NEWS

A C T I V I T Y U P D A T E By Kieran Flood, IWT Coordinator

IWT Members’

Wildlife Photo of the Year

Congratulation to Andrea Hunt, who is the winner of the 2020 IWT Members' Wildlife Photo of the Year competition, with her fantastic photo capturing the magic of a bumblebee foraging in mid-air. The image illustrates one of nature’s most important partnerships in sharp detail, that of plants and their pollinating insect partners. Note the pollen grains falling from the flower and the bee’s pollen baskets (known as corbiculae) on her back legs.

2020 was our first year running this competition. We introduced the competition as another way to engage you - our members, - to showcase the wildlife of Ireland and to give out some prizes to our fantastic membership base. We will be running the competition once more in 2021 so keep an eye out for details in the magazine and online. You can see the competition shortlist of 10 amazing photographs on pages 34 and 35 of this issue. Thank you to all of you who entered this completion.

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IWT NEWS

C A M P A I G N U P D A T E By Pádraic Fogarty

 Illustration by Jacek Matsiak

Imagining a nature-filled Ireland It’s four years since my book, ‘Whittled Away – Ireland’s Vanishing Nature’ was published and my main motivation for writing it at that time was to convey the full extent to which nature in this country has disappeared. While we still have some way to go, there’s no doubt that the last four years have seen a step change in our conversation about biodiversity loss.

The Dáil declared a climate and biodiversity emergency in 2019 so in many ways you can say that it is official. The media really struggle with the idea of mass extinction and biodiversity loss and I suppose that can be said of the climate side of the shop also. But it’s undeniable that progress has been made. ‘Whittled Away’ devoted space to the solutions to these issues – rewildling, marine protected areas and the like – but I felt that there was a project in delving deeper into these solutions. And so ‘Shaping New Mountains’ was conceived.

It’s split into two parts. The second part expands on six ‘big ideas’ for bringing nature back including the Wild Atlantic Rainforest in Cork and Kerry, transforming Dublin into a truly ‘natural capital’, the Shannon Wilderness Park, the Ulster Shark Coast, the Pearl Valley Farmland where we see a new agriculture helping to restore populations of the critically endangered freshwater pearl mussel, and Bear County – a vision for rewilding in Connemara and West Mayo.

In many ways, these ideas are self-explanatory but what I tried to do was to get into the nuts and bolts. What’s actually required? In searching for these answers I went to farmers, politicians, scientists, community activists, wildlife rangers and more. I travelled the length and breadth of Ireland from Arranmore Island in Donegal to the River Blackwater valley in Waterford, from the Phoenix Park in Irish Wildlife Spring ‘21

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IWT NEWS

C A M P A I G N U P D A T E By Pádraic Fogarty

Dublin to the tip of the Beara Peninsula in Cork. I found myself having And I found what has become one of my favourite books on nature, conversations that quickly veered off from nature conservation onto ‘Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis. farm wages, social isolation, inequality and urban deprivation and And what the last two years have taught me is that we need an from habitats to overfishing. In other words, people must be central ethical revolution to build a new relationship with nature. This is to any solutions to our environmental problems. not as far-fetched as it might first sound, after all, we have had The first part of the project though is perhaps the more important a number of ethical revolutions in Ireland in recent decades one. Why is it that we have a biodiversity crisis in the first place? (think same-sex marriage or abortion). And the basis of the revolution?

Nearly everyone will tell you that nature is important, essential It must be a combination of education and change to the constitution even, so why is there so much apathy when it comes to its destruction? to recognise the rights of nature and the rights of people to a Why do we see it as acceptable to pollute rivers or drive species to healthy environment. extinction to sustain certain parts of the economy? In the 1950s and To find out more, check out Shaping New Mountains on the IWT 60s Ireland was trying to reverse emigration and develop export website where it is being serialised in text and audio, or you can find markets to access hard currency, so burning the bogs or planting it on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. swathes of conifer monocultures had a certain logic, even if it was culturally and ecologically insensitive. But what’s our excuse today? The Arterial Drainage Act Ireland is one of the richest countries in the world… how much richer At the end of January, the IWT launched a petition to reform the do we need to be?

Arterial Drainage Act of 1945. This piece of legislation is one of the There was a belief some years back that, due to poor levels of data most important causes of damage to our river systems and is not fit and monitoring, that once we had all the right for the 21st Century. This is largely because information then we would make better "RIVERS DON’T WANT the Office of Public Works (OPW) is required decisions. The National Biodiversity Data to ‘maintain’ 11,500km of our rivers in a TO BE STRAIGHT AND Centre was established in 2007 to address permanently drained and straightened state. this, but its reports and findings have made DEEP AND SO, OVER In the years following the passing of the TIME, TREES AND little difference to decision-making.

Arterial Drainage Act, heavy machinery was Since the 1970s we have been amassing a OTHER VEGETATION sent into whole river catchments – not to body of environmental laws on everything WILL GROW AND protect towns and homes, but to create more from water pollution to planning and habitats THE DEPTH OF THE farmland. Rivers like the Boyne in Meath, to overfishing. Yet it hasn’t mattered a jot – an the Clare in Galway and the Brosna in RIVER WILL REDUCE. article in the Irish Independent newspaper Westmeath were deepened, widened and in January of this year quoted judge Anthony BUT UNDER THE ACT, artificially straightened in order to dry out Collins saying that the state has shown ‘MAINTENANCE’ MEANS the flood plains for cattle or crops. an “astonishing reluctance” to comply THE OPW MUST SEND Rivers don’t want to be straight and deep with environmental rules and regulations that IN THE DIGGERS EVERY and so, over time, trees and other vegetation they themselves signed up to. Yet there is COUPLE OF YEARS will grow and the depth of the river will no general outrage among the public for reduce. But under the Act, ‘maintenance’ TO RE-INFLICT THIS this delinquency. means the OPW must send in the diggers The idea of the ‘web of life’ is an old DAMAGE. IT’S BONKERS." every couple of years to re-inflict this metaphor. There is great wisdom in the phrase damage. It’s bonkers. that we all recognise. It has led to the understanding that biological Many people in Ireland have grown up believing that rivers need life is a delicate balancing act – with every species unknowingly to be ‘cleaned out’ and that flooding is a result of the state not doing regulating all the others. Yet we don’t see ourselves as part of its job. In fact, the OPW ‘maintenance’ work – by prioritising farmland that web, and we don’t seem to recognise that, in Ireland at least, the over property – is increasing flood risk. Add to that the increasing ‘carefully balanced ecosystem’ doesn’t exist and hasn’t existed for impact of climate breakdown, with predicted greater intensity of a very long time: all of our ecosystems are in a collapsed state. rainfall episodes (see what happened in Clifden, Co. Galway in Why then, if nature is as vital as ecologists say, do Irish people enjoy September of last year) and you have more rain falling on more one of the highest standards of living compared to nearly every degraded rivers which then have catastrophic effects for people. other country?

Flooding is a not a problem that can simply be solved. We must If we’re to really address the climate and biodiversity emergency learn to live with flooding while doing what we can to reduce its we really must resolve these paradoxes. To do this I spoke to some peaks and protecting property where we can. This will mean some people who you might not normally associate with addressing level of hard engineering (though we might hope that the OPW can problems in nature conservation – a nun, a priest and an eco-feminist! make these installations less ugly). Natural flood defences will take

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option would be on the table and assured us that we would receive a considered response to our proposal to reform the Arterial Drainage Act. At the time of writing, we had just over 3,500 signatures to our petition and we will be delivering these to minister O’Donovan as well as the Oireachtas petition committee. But we need more so please sign up at https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/reform-the-arterial-drainage-act Or you can go one step further by writing to your local TD asking them to support this campaign.

National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS)

 Arterial Drainage Act. Credit, Mike Brown

time and cannot promise that flooding won’t happen. Currently our land uses, from forestry and peat extraction to farming, promote flooding by reducing the ability of soil to absorb and store water.

Changing this requires an entire overhaul of land-use policies, something that is beyond the remit of the OPW alone.

But the OPW can be modernised and repurposed. It can carry out its works in a more transparent way and it must come into compliance with environmental law. Environmental groups shouldn’t have to fight for these things. A reformed Arterial Drainage Act would do away with the ‘maintenance’ requirement and enable the OPW to restore bends, ox-bow lakes, natural meanders and flood plains.

Farming subsidies, which need to be radically reformed anyway, should reward farmers for rewilding river systems and holding on to the water so that it stays out of people’s homes and businesses. When any new flood scheme is planned the OPW must be compelled to implement naturebased solutions and only resort to hard engineering when there is no other option. It’s unacceptable that the public is paying for all this river destruction and then also paying for the flood defences and water purification downstream, when nature could be doing this for us.

In February, the IWT met with then Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine in charge of the OPW, Fine Gael’s Patrick O’Donovan, along with other environmental groups. He told us that every

IWT members will be aware that the reform of the NPWS is long overdue.

As we go to press, I am happy to report that Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Malcolm Noonan, has announced the launch of this review. The IWT lobbied hard for this in the run-up to the general election in February 2020 and the final text of the Programme for Government commits to “review the remit, status and funding of the NPWS, to ensure that it is playing an effective role in delivering its overall mandate and enforcement role in the protection of wildlife”.

It will be led by Dr Jane Stout, Professor in Botany at the School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin (Chairperson) and former Environmental Protection Agency Director Dr Micheál Ó Cinnéide (Deputy Chair). In a press statement, the minister said “ensuring that the National Parks and Wildlife Service is properly resourced, staffed and equipped to lead Ireland’s response to the biodiversity emergency is one of my key priorities as Minister of State. In 2020, NPWS’s funding was 70% down on what it had been before the financial crisis in 2008. I increased its funding by 80% in Budget 2021, but there is much more to do. The scale of this Government’s ambition for nature is unprecedented, and the recommendations of this strategic review will be critical in enabling us to meet that ambition.”

According to the statement the review will comprise three phases, including 1) an extensive stakeholder engagement process (both internal and external), 2) an assessment of NPWS capacity, resourcing, staffing, governance and other key operational aspects, and 3) a comparative desktop analysis of resources/structures of similar organisations in other jurisdictions and an overview of the role and responsibilities of other state bodies and their relationship with NPWS. It is anticipated that the review process will be completed this summer, with publication of the report and its key recommendations to follow.

A review of the NPWS was carried out by Grant Thornton consultants in 2009, at the end of the economic crash. This made some important recommendations, particularly around governance, but which were not acted on. Over 10 years on, circumstances have changed significantly and we need to be a lot more ambitious for what we want from any new nature conservation agency.

This review must result in meaningful change on the ground and we look forward to engaging in the consultation process.

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 Humpback Whale

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Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)

The lack of a coherent network of MPAs in Ireland is another long-running issue. It was in March of 2017 that then-minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, addressed a conference organised by the Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) and gave a commitment to bring forward legislation by the end of that year which would address planning in the marine environment, including MPAs. That didn’t happen.

In October of 2019, an expert group was established, chaired by Dr Tasman Crowe of University College Dublin, to advise the government on meeting its MPA commitments. Its work was delayed due to Covid-19 but in October 2020 it delivered its report to Minister Darragh O’Brien at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (who has responsibility for planning and MPA designation).

With the formation of the new government last summer, there is clearly a new (and very welcome!) impetus to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets and, as part of this, a renewed urgency to address outdated marine planning laws.

However, the Marine Planning and Development Bill, which will be before the Dáil shortly, has excised all mention of MPAs. Meanwhile, the expert MPA report was finally published in late January, only after the minister sat on it for three whole months.

A consultation on the report only started in mid-February and is to run for five months. In all, it will have taken nearly two years between the appointment of the expert group and the end of the public consultation. And then there will be further delays to consider the replies and decide on an approach. If – as looks likely – entirely new legislation is needed for the designation of MPAs – then it could be many more years before we see the process of actual designation starting. I don’t think you need to be too cynical to notice that the authorities are deliberately slow pedalling "THE IWT LOBBIED HARD FOR THIS their way through this!

IN THE RUN-UP TO THE GENERAL Evidently, the mentality seems ELECTION IN FEBRUARY 2020 AND THE to be that the development of FINAL TEXT OF THE PROGRAMME FOR offshore wind installations GOVERNMENT COMMITS TO “REVIEW must be allowed to fire ahead and that the designation of THE REMIT, STATUS AND FUNDING MPAs can’t be allowed to OF THE NPWS, TO ENSURE THAT IT impede this. Our fear is that IS PLAYING AN EFFECTIVE ROLE IN MPAs will then have to squeeze DELIVERING ITS OVERALL MANDATE into whatever is left over after AND ENFORCEMENT ROLE IN THE the offshore energy industry PROTECTION OF WILDLIFE." has taken their pick of sites. The IWT, along with our colleagues in other environmental groups, made these points to the Oireachtas committee reviewing the Marine Planning and Development Bill in a presentation to them in December. We also highlighted how the approach is not compliant with the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, which clearly stipulate that planning in the marine environment must be based on an ‘ecosystem approach’.

In the absence of MPAs therefore, the much needed deployment of offshore renewable energy is adopting a high risk strategy. We hope this can be rectified before it is too late..

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FEATURE

‘To hear the lone curlew call ’ CAN CULTURAL MEMORY RESCUE THE CURLEW? ASKS MICHELLE CAREY

M.Brown

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reland’s breeding curlew population is highly endangered, but the bird still holds a special place in our stories, songs, poetry and place names.

Can the curlew’s deep roots in our culture and heritage inspire current and future generations to save it?

On a crisp morning in April, I set out across a bog in County Galway at sunrise. Mist had settled across the rolling landscape and dew sparkled on the heather. I listened intently for Eurasian curlew, hoping that as I walked, I would startle a hidden bird into letting out a warning call or flying up out of its nest.

In spring, curlew return from their winter sites across European coastlines to breed further inland. They are generally site-faithful, meaning they return to the same field or patch of bog to nest and only a few decades ago the ground-nesting bird’s call was a common feature of the Irish countryside in spring and summer months.

We refer to those that settle in open bogland or marginal grassland in Ireland as our native breeding curlew population. Since the 1980s, Ireland’s breeding curlew population has dropped by around 90%, mainly due to rapidly diminishing habitats caused by the changing ways that we humans use land. Curlew have been pushed to the margins because of destruction of bogland, increasing swathes of dense forestry and changing "IT LEAVES US TO farming practices.

WONDER WHETHER In early spring, the curlews' exuberant calls and airborne CURLEW WERE INDEED breeding displays indicate to ONE OF THE MOST members of the Curlew Conservation COMMON BIRDS, OR IF Programme where the birds are likely THEIR DISTINCTIVE LONG to nest over the coming months. The CURVED BILL AND THEIR Curlew Conservation Programme UNIQUE WHISTLING was established by the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) in 2017 CALL STOOD OUT TO and is partnered by the Department LOCALS. OR HAD THEIR of Agriculture, Food and the Marine NUMBERS DECLINED IN as Ireland’s primary effort in helping THOSE 30 YEARS? curlew in Ireland.

I was privileged to be part of this important project in 2020, as part of the Curlew Action Team working in the Slieve Aughty Mountains, which straddle counties Galway and Clare. An unfortunate result of the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in March meant that our teams were prevented from surveying potential

Fiona Smith

breeding sites. By the time surveying commenced, curlew pairs were settled in their well-camouflaged nests, staying mostly silent and out of sight to avoid threats. It was in this context that I walked across bogs and fields at sunrise, searching for any sight or sound of the wader.

In an archive of folklore compiled by Irish schoolchildren in the 1930s, called the 'School's Collection’ (www.duchas. ie), children's accounts frequently reference the curlew as one of the most common local birds. But in ‘The First Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland: 1968-1972’, curlew ranked 45th on the list of recorded sightings – far from the most populous species. It leaves us to wonder whether curlew were indeed one of the most common birds, or if their distinctive long curved bill and their unique whistling call stood out to locals. Or had their numbers declined in those 30 years?

The curlew’s cultural significance is also evident in religious folklore. One story recalls how a curlew helped Christ to evade his enemies by calling loudly to wake him in his sleep, or by covering his footprints as he fled.

Another tale says that Saint Patrick fell asleep beside a stream and avoided drowning thanks to a curlew screeching loudly to wake him. In these stories, Christ and Saint Patrick thank the curlew by ensuring that its nests will never be found.

On making my way back to my car that morning after unsuccessful surveying, I met a local man who commented that he hadn't heard a curlew in the area for years. He added that his mother remembered hearing the curlew's distinctive, whistling call on the bog – a ubiquitous sound that W.B. Yeats described as a “sweet crystalline cry” in his poem 'Paudeen' and connected to feelings of

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Janice Mulligan

melancholy and lost love in the poem 'He Reproves The Curlew'. The man told me that he would love the curlew to return to the area and I was hopeful that their silence that day did not prove their absence.

I wondered whether the fine, "ACCOUNTS FROM sunny weather was the reason I ACROSS IRELAND IN THE hadn't heard any curlew that morning, as they are frequently 'SCHOOLS’ COLLECTION' referred to as ‘the storm bird’ in DESCRIBE HOW “WHEN Irish folklore – their call signalled THE CURLEW WHISTLES incoming rain. Accounts from WE ARE SURE TO HAVE across Ireland in the 'Schools’ RAIN BEFORE LONG” Collection' describe how “when the AND “WHEN A CURLEW curlew whistles we are sure to have rain before long” and “when a IS HEARD CRYING AT curlew is heard crying at night, and NIGHT, AND IT IS SEEN it is seen flying over land, bad FLYING OVER LAND, BAD weather ensues.”

WEATHER ENSUES.” The storm bird’s unique call inspired musical minds too. Antrim composer Josephine Keegan was inspired to write ‘The Curlew Reel’. In the song ‘My Own Leitrim Home’, the curlew’s cry stirs up a longing for home: “There to smell the sweet scent of the heather And to hear the lone Curlew call...

I ask not for fame or for fortune Just give me my own Leitrim home.”

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This association of the curlew with home was also highlighted in the 1982 Harp Lager advertisement, wellknown for the line “Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at you”, in which an Irishman abroad longs for home.

The Irishman longs for a pint of Harp and the curlew’s cry. Thinking about this ad today begs the question, what animal or bird would an ad in 2021 use to evoke a nostalgic sense of home? What sounds and sights remind us of the Irish countryside? Would the curlew still feature?

Still out surveying later that afternoon,I met a local woman and asked her if she knew of any curlew in the area. She had never heard of the bird and didn’t recognise my descriptions. After a plummet in the curlew population over a short few decades, our experiences of the bird have lessened and our ability to recognise them has also diminished. Yet the curlew’s presence was at one time abundant enough to inspire place names across Ireland.

‘Curlew’, the Irish ‘an crotach’, or the Scots Gaelic ‘whaupp’, appear in at least 16 place names across Ireland, from Whaup Hill in Co. Antrim to An Chrotach Theas/ Crutta South in Co. Tipperary, hinting at the bird’s deep connection with Ireland’s landscape.

From poetry to place names, the curlew has permeated Ireland’s cultural heritage. It was once associated with the Irish countryside, home, as well as spring and summer evenings. Michael Viney described hearing the bird’s call as “oddly reassuring”, bringing the same

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 Katie Spiers

comforting “contentment...as the sudden tang of turfsmoke”. Today, their endangered status has inspired artists in a different way.

For Katie Spiers, a glass sculptor from Dublin, her delicate sculptures of curlew represent the bird’s fragility and beauty. She describes how observing curlew makes her feel connected to previous generations. Curlew are also a muse for the sculptor Fiona Smith, who created a bronze sculpture called ‘Moon Bird’, depicting a Curlew sitting on top of a thin crescent moon. The artwork references the bird’s scientific name Numenius arquata – ‘Numenius’ comes from the Greek word ‘neos’ meaning new and ‘mene’ meaning moon and is thought to reference the curlew’s curved bill.

The Irish branch of Extinction Rebellion, the environmental activist movement, uses an image of the curlew alongside the words “Gníomhaigh anois/Act now” to symbolise Ireland’s biodiversity crisis and the bird’s threat of extinction. One member of the group told me that the curlew brings the threat of species extinction closer to home, rather than pointing to species like the polar bear, which are far removed from our experience in Ireland.

The following morning, I was out surveying again. I came across a farmer and asked him if he had heard or seen any curlew in the area. Luckily, he replied that he knew exactly where they were and he could take me there. Wary that this could be too good to be true, I followed the farmer in

his tractor down winding roads bordered by high hedgerows to a nearby area of open bogland, surrounded by dense forestry. I thanked him and he wished me luck.

I was grateful for his local knowledge and willingness to help. The combination of focused conservation campaigns and local contributions is sustaining Ireland’s remaining breeding curlew population.

But after such a calamitous decline from thousands of pairs to no more than 150 pairs, is this, one of the greatest conservation concerns of our time, an insurmountable task?

How do we restore and grow the population? How do we inspire people in Ireland to care about the threat of the curlew’s extinction?

In the USA, celebrating the cultural importance of a species was an effective tool in fostering stakeholder support for the bald eagle recovery programme. The bald eagle is the USA’s national symbol, representing the qualities of freedom and strength that Americans associate with their own national identity. As a result, when the eagle’s population declined worryingly in the 20th century, significant resources were poured into a recovery programme in the 1970s and 1980s.

Are there any wild Irish animals to which we would commit similar attention? For species like the curlew, we may realise that the bird is an important part of our cultural heritage by acknowledging the place that it held in the lives of previous generations.

Walking through the area where the farmer had led me, I looked around at the bordering forestry and signs of burnt vegetation. I wondered if curlew could possibly make this their temporary home. Suddenly, an ethereal whistling call made me look up. A curlew flying overhead sounded off its warning call, suggesting that they were nesting in the area. Next, I set out to try to find the bird’s nest so that next year’s surveyors can arrive here early to help ensure this pair’s success. Heartened by the bird’s unexpected appearance, I suddenly felt the entrancing effect this enigmatic species has had on Irish hearts and minds for generations.

Michelle worked as a Curlew Champion with the Curlew Conservation Programme in 2020. Inspired by the programme and encouraged by Dr Barry O’Donoghue and Dr Caitriona Carlin, she undertook her MSc research project 'Mapping the cultural ecosystem services of the Eurasian curlew (Numenius arquata) on the island of Ireland’, collating material that showcases the bird’s significance in Ireland’s cultural heritage.

Thanks to Dr. Barry O’Donoghue for his guidance and contribution.

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FRONT LINE

Understanding the miracle of

OYSTERS RESTORING WITH NATURE: WHAT ARE WE LEARNING FROM OYSTERS? BY PROF. ANAMARIJA FRANKIĆ

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ature has been teaching us about design miracles and solutions for years – how to live resilient, healthy, loving lives creating conditions conducive to clean water, air, soil, food and biodiversity. Amazing! There is nothing more relaxing to me than to dive into water, fresh or salty, and reconnect with nature’s energy, absorbing it, recharging and sharing her wisdom.

Unfortunately, we are continuously alarmed by the loss of biological diversity and one very common species captured my interest for many decades. Today, I am still learning from this marine bivalve – the oyster.

Did you know that oyster reefs are the most endangered coastal habitat globally? Imagine the amazing bivalve shells piling up to seven metre high reefs and spreading thousands of hectares in area, building three dimensional structured habitats in every sea and along every coast of every continent. Presently, as there are practically no existing oyster reefs it is hard to image the vast oyster populations globally and their benefits to our coastal ecosystems.

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 The beach at Arklow, Co. Wicklow

" DECLINES IN OYSTER REEF POPULATION ARE MAINLY DUE TO ANTHROPOGENIC ACTIVITIES THAT LEAD TO OVER-HARVESTING, HABITAT DESTRUCTION, COASTAL WATER POLLUTION AND DISEASE SPREAD." Oysters have diversified into hundreds of species adapted to specific coastal marine and estuarine environments, becoming one of the world’s most significant coastal engineers. Oysters have been evolving for about five hundred million years, shifting with temperature changes and sea level rises, adapting to natural changes through the Ice Age, until the present Anthropocene Era. We know today that one adult oyster can filter between one to two hundred litres of water per day!

Unfortunately, global oyster populations and their reef habitats have been reduced by approximately 85% in many coastal ecoregions and by 99% in most bay areas (estuaries). Declines in oyster reef population are mainly due to anthropogenic activities that lead to over-harvesting, habitat destruction, coastal water pollution and disease spread. When the harmony of a natural system is harmed, it is more prone to diseases.

This amazing, healthy food source is a delicacy for humans and a keystone species in nature which is now missing from one of the most important niches in nature – coastal and marine systems.

Oyster reefs are formed through the gregarious settlement of oysters, preferably on their own shells or any other calcium carbonate substrate. As ecosystem engineers, oyster reefs enhance biodiversity by harbouring juvenile and smaller fish species, creating natural coastal buffer zones absorbing wave energy, and preventing erosion. We should not undermine their ability to reverse present water pollution and ocean acidification, although it is hard to visualise their historic abundance in the global marine environment because we don’t have a single example of a healthy oyster reef to learn from.

Throughout their lifespan, oysters help reduce turbidity and improve photosynthesis in deeper waters, promoting the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV). The symbiotic relationship between deep water oyster

habitats and SAV supports synergistic ecosystem benefits including sediment stabilisation, habitat creation and improved water quality. Interestingly, along some coastlands, oysters prefer to settle in the vicinities of salt marshes. These three keystone coastal systems (salt marsh, oyster reef and SAV) act in unison to create some of the most biologically productive areas known.

Natural systems that love to work together with oyster reefs vary globally and include mangroves, coral reefs, rocky shorelines, kelp, mud flats, sandy beaches and dunes. Essentially, every natural coastal and marine system requires filterfeeders and healthy waters.

NATIVE OYSTER REEF RESTORATION IRELAND (NORRI)

In 2019, we initiated the Native Oyster Reef Restoration Ireland (NORRI) project to restore Ostrea edulis, the endangered native European flat oyster. Historically, this oyster species was established along 80km of reefs from Wicklow Head to Ravens Point, Co. Wexford. Arklow in Co. Wicklow was the main port for oyster fisheries in the 1800s, with a harvest of forty million oysters by 1863. Today, the whole of Ireland lands just over two million native oysters per year. Every single harbour in the world has a similar story. The oyster reefs are gone but remind us of their presence with accumulated oyster shells along the beaches.

Together with the local community we set up the NORRI initiative to restore their historic beds. We have selected two suitable sites for oyster reef restoration, along Wicklow’s coastal marine area and the main goal is to establish two no-take areas, with Biomimicry LivingLabs (see https://biomimicry.org/livinglabs-savin-hill/). With support from Wicklow County Council, County Wicklow Partnership and the local community, NORRI hopes to reintroduce this species and restore oyster reefs so that Wicklow and neighboring counties can once again benefit from the presence of this native, keystone species in the Irish Sea. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic and lockdowns, we had to postpone practical biomimicry workshops as well as our pilot project. We held a two-day workshop in Arklow, in March 2020 with 40 participants and we are going to organize the second online workshop in March this year. Hopefully, we will be able to start the oyster restoration pilot project this summer in Arklow.

What can you do? First, say thank you to oysters when you eat them next. Second, please bring shells back to the sea where they belong. One in a million oyster larvae might find a home to settle on them.

For more information visit www.norri.ie or search for NORRI Project on YouTube to watch their documentary.

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Covid 22

A SELECTION OF STONES AND A FEW IDEAS INSPIRED BY NATURE HAS KEPT GORDON D’ARCY BUSY DURING COVID

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hat did you do during Covid? Hunkered down no doubt. Paradoxically, it has also been an opportunity to get out into nature – within safe limits of course. The out of doors has never seemed so important, for our sanity as much as anything else. It’s amazing how nature gently imposes itself on us when we expose ourselves to it. We start noticing things – the landscape profile, the changing sky – that we had previously taken for granted. Back at home we find earlier negatives replaced by positives – enthusiasm, inspiration.

Technology has not been slow to play its part in offering outlets for our inspiration. The Heritage Council, Waterways Ireland and various environmental groups have, through online platforms, prompted nature-inspired essays, poems and visual contributions such as photos or short videos.

The lockdown provided me with an opportunity to do something different. Confined to Inch in Co. Kerry, I began to paint images from nature on cobble-sized stones collected from the beach. Starting innocently enough, I painted one-off examples of shore wildlife but like many fun activities, it soon became a routine. Every day after a field outing, I returned to the house with a stone and an idea. The smooth-surfaced Old Red Sandstone was ideal.

I found that variation in shape was not a disadvantage as it frequently lent itself to a particular species or theme. Originally the emphasis was on birds but gradually plants, shore creatures and even coastal scenes found their way into the artwork. I used watercolour pencil, oil pastel and acrylic paint.

By the time the restrictions had been relaxed, I had completed 27 stone/art pieces which I decided to leave for the absent house owners (I hope they like them!). Their conservatory had become both a studio and a gallery.

In response to suggestions, I posted the

WILD IDEAS

images on Instagram and to my delight, collected an opinionated following. Though quite unlike anything I had done before, the project was well received. The month-long exercise had been enjoyable and worthwhile and Covid had been kept at bay.

On returning home to the edge of the Burren I decided to continue with the enterprise, on the theme of the Burren’s wildlife and landscapes. Given the time of the year, I decided upon autumn and winter wildlife – a rich source of inspiration, often overlooked by nature enthusiasts to the region. My cobble-stone ‘canvases’ were now wave-smoothed Carboniferous limestones (the rock of the region) collected from a nearby storm beach.

Again, fun was to be had critically examining the stones for their suitability for a particular theme or species. Small pit holes (made by tiny marine invertebrates), marring otherwise suitable stones, were unscientifically sealed using beads of Blu Tack. Thankfully, such blemishes vanished with the art process.

The subjects chosen were mostly drawn from the flora and the wide range of fauna found in the Burren. So significant species of birds and mammals were depicted along with lesser known but representative species like the carline thistle, certain shrubs, even an amphibian and reptile or two and the lesserhorseshoe bat.

The series was completed with a number of spectacular birds and mammals known to have become extinct in the region mainly due to human pressure. However, no depiction of the Burren would be complete without reference to

the landscape and the regionally distinctive human artefacts constructed from the local stone.

The final display of 57 pieces – another two months of work – is now decorating the ledge in my own conservatory. Displayed on Instagram, I looked forward to the daily feedback from my followers. Thankfully, most of this was complementary but remarks about a lack of sharp definition of some of the images needed to be addressed. As I stated, this was intentional. I did not want the stone to look like it was ‘painted on’; rather I was interested in the idea of the image ‘emerging’ from the stone.

To this end I abandoned acrylic paint and used only colouring pencils and pastels.

How have you been coping with Covid? No doubt some of you will have been inspired to try your hand at a creative exercise of your own.

We all have it in us in some form or other. Why not have a go at the stone art and perhaps involve the children too?

For me, the stone art was a trip into new territory. Nor have I arrived. A new stone art theme has presented itself, which hopefully, will occupy me to the end of Covid. If you are curious or would like to join me on the journey, you can check it out on my Instagram @ gordondarcynature.

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SPRING FOCUS

Dunsany Castle by Rafal Kostrzewa

Roundabout

Ways

By Billy Flynn

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SPRING FOCUS

I

t’s difficult to believe how much the world can change in a calendar year. Twelve months ago, almost all talk in the media was on Brexit and its potential ramifications. Little did we know that 2020 would go down in history for very different reasons.

For some people, their interests, hobbies and passions had to be entirely put aside. For others, their work was curtailed or restrained.

If you’re a committed Tidy Towns volunteer, what you do in and for your community is all of the above combined. There are almost 1,000 Tidy Towns groups around Ireland and their beneficial impact on our common environment is huge.

This isn't just on tackling litter or prettifying streetscapes. Tidy Towns has become the leading voluntary environmental movement on this island and there are huge biodiversity benefits too as one of the eight categories is Nature and Biodiversity in Your Locality. The author was interested to know how Tidy Towns groups managed to continue their work on local biodiversity projects in the face of the restrictions that have been imposed since last March. A chat with volunteers from some of the leading Tidy Towns groups found that they’d managed very well indeed.

In Ennis, Co. Clare, the lockdown meant fewer work nights but it also allowed them time to put together a very involved funding application to LEADER. This has resulted in them being the first community group to purchase their own ‘zero-grazer.’ This is a piece of agricultural machinery that removes cuttings, rather than mulching them and has allowed Ennis Tidy Towns to maintain 80% of their roundabouts and much of their verges in a wildflower-friendly way. They have also calculated that they have made huge emission reductions thanks to their less intensive management regimes. You can follow some of the story on www.pollinators.ie.

Away from their pollinator-friendly roundabouts, they have also been at the desk, developing ‘Everyday SDGs' - embedding the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into what this group does as part of its work. Like so much of their work, Ennis Tidy Towns is sharing this far-looking project with other groups around the country.

Way down south, Cobh Tidy Towns has kept the flag flying for biodiversity. Their work has been restricted, admits Margaret ‘Moggy’ Somers, but they never stopped. They replaced lots of ‘useless for wildlife’

ornamental plants with pollinator-friendly perennials along their ‘Five-Foot Way.’ They also created a community orchard along this walk (it’s a lot longer than five feet!) as well as a new mural of native butterflies that may be seen here. This project, Cobh volunteer Ruth reckons, got a lot of people through Lockdown. You can see some of the amazing work that they have done here on www.cobhtidytowns.ie or on their Facebook page.

You’ll also see their Cuinne an Ghiorria (The Hare’s Corner) Nature Notes from The Great Island and their links to Cuskinny Marsh Nature Reserve. They’ve used some of the ‘down time’ to work on their social media, says Ruth, and their signage too. One of the upsides is that people seem to be more aware of how much the Tidy Towns group does than before.

Perhaps people are taking more time to look around and properly take in their environment.

If they did, they’d have been surprised to see strawberries growing in repurposed oil barrels - one of the new features of the Five-Foot Way in 2021.

Up north and nearly on the border that Monaghan shares with Armagh, Glaslough Tidy Towns have also been keeping busy. But you’d expect that from the reigning champions who, despite being the only group since 1967 to hold the title for two years running, have not rested on their laurels. They managed to squeeze a ‘real-life’ Bio-Blitz into a period of lockdown relaxation, as their Chairperson Louise Duffy put it. Somewhere in there they also managed to convert the open lawns of their biggest housing estate to wildflower meadows.

They have also leaned heavily on social media and use this to remind residents to keep feeding the birds and to hold an online poster competition for school-goers. A pollinatorthemed float never got its outing last St Patrick’s Day but their wildflower garden and allotments could all be looked after at a safe, if not terribly social distance.

Although all of the groups have different challenges and aspirations, they were all united in their commitment to biodiversity in their hometowns. If six pages were allowed for this article, we’d still be leaving out some of the projects that these groups undertook over the last year. Wildlife in many communities has champions that will be coming out fighting when the bell finally rings.

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

 Grey Mining Bee (Andrena cineraria)

by Lill Dunne

How to create a

Bee Bank

BY RICKY WHELAN

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

W

e are all now familiar with the struggles of our native bee species due to the stellar work of the National Biodiversity Data Centre and the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan. We have seen huge moves to create wildflower meadows, manage and plant better hedgerows and propagate better, more pollinator friendly flowering schemes in our towns and villages to help these struggling insects. All these actions are fantastic and helping to arrest declines in native bee populations, but food is only one of their needs with another being the need for suitable nesting habitat. Ireland is home to no less that 62 solitary mining bees which need suitable sites to excavate chambers in which to lay eggs and complete their life cycle. Many of these species excavate these tunnels in warm exposed banks of sand and clay. Many of these bees are tiny and the only indication of them being there at all is a scattering of tiny holes where the bees have made their exit.

To create a bee bank and provide good, safe nesting habitat for these bees you can take two approaches.

Existing Patch The first and the easier of the two options is to modify an area to suit burrowing bees. You will need to find a sloping piece of ground, there is no minimum size; a few feet square would be super! The slope can be near vertical or shallow but it is important that its freely draining. The substrate can be sandy, made of soil, a bit gravelly or a mixture. The important thing is for it to be south facing and not shaded. Along the edge of a driveway or ditch or even a forgotten pile of soil will do. You will need to remove the layer of vegetation growing on the surface to give free access to the bees. Once you have scraped it bare and the sun gets on it all you need to do is wait! Scraping back a patch on the flat is also worth a go as some species prefer that. Choose a spot exposed to the sun and with poor soil/substrate as this will help suppress plant growth.

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

 Bare soil below a hedgerow showing numerous solitary bee cavities

A New Bank The second option is to import the substrate (sand/soil) to a suitable spot and build from scratch. This method might suit a Tidy Towns project, a school, a farm or a housing estate nature area perhaps. The size here is not important and will be dictated by budget (if buying sand) as well as help and space available.

Choose a spot that gets the sun. If it is on grass you will want to turn the top sod to suppress the vegetation. Literally use a spade to cut the sod off the top and flip it over grass side down. If it’s an area of bare ground, you can avoid that step. Now mark out the footprint of the bee bank, a south-facing crescent shape is recommended to capture various angles to the sun. Now you need to begin to build up the core of the bee bank, the material used can be anything available, a mixture of rocks, gravel, soil, subsoil or whatever will do nicely. With the core material in-place you will have a significant crescent shape structure that now needs capping with the material where the bees will tunnel.

Builder's sand is recommended here and will need to be layered to a minimum of 30cm deep, but deeper pockets are also a good idea to add variety. Sub soil could also be used here; the key thing is the material can be compacted and firmed up and is low in nutrients to reduce vegetation establishing (why we avoid using topsoil). Variation of nesting habitat will attract various bee species so finessing your bee bank by modifying slopes, the depth of capping material etc will likely result in a greater variety of occupants!

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 Roadside slope with bare soil, perfect solitary bee nesting habitat

In Summary • • • • • •

Choose suitable site (a sunny south-facing spot).

Clear the ground or turn sod if the vegetation is vigorous.

Build the core of the structure with available materials (rocks, soil, gravel).

Cap the structure with capping material (builders’ sand or sub soil).

Compact the capping material.

Grab a cuppa!

Maintenance Both the semi-natural and newly built bee bank will need to be cleared of vegetation every year in late autumn to ensure bee access is retained. Do this by hand or very carefully with a tool so as not to disturb the tunnels and inhabitants. Clear vegetation around the edge to slow encroachment. Never use herbicides to suppress plant growth.

Further Reading National Biodiversity Data Centre, How to Guide – Creating Wild Pollinator Nesting Habitat: https://www.heritageweek.ie/content/files/Pollinator-How-to-Guide-1-ALT_FINAL.pdf Juanita Browne, Gardening For Biodiversity: https://laois.ie/wp-content/uploads/GardenWildlife-Booklet-WEB-17MB.pdf Bug Life, Bee Bank Booklet: http://www.friendsofhaileypark.org.uk/uploads/1/9/5/1/1951271/ bee_bank_booklet.pdf

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FIADHLÚRA

FIADHLÚRA

 Boynevalley

Uisce na h-abhann

L

e 10,000 bliain, tá aibhneacha na hÉireann á n-úsáid agus á mí-úsáid ag daoine.Níl amhras ar bith go bhfuil aeráid báistiúil anseo in Éireann; cureann sé báisteach, ar an meán, lá amháin as gach trí lá, agus draenann na h-uiscí sin isteach inár sruthanna, lochanna agus aibhneacha iomadúla.Ta stair an tír seo fite fuaite leis an aeráid, an bhfearthainn, agus an timpeallacht féin; ní féidir na h-ábhair seo a scaradh as a chéile!

Is iomadh cathar a bunaíodh le taobh áth abhann [agus taispeánann a n-ainmneacha an stair sin; Baile Átha Cliath, Áth Luain, Droichead Átha - mar shamplaí.]

Ach tá íoróin anseo - íoróin thragóideach stair an duine. “Each man kills the thing he loves” a scríobh an file, Oscar Wilde Agus cé gur thóg daoine a gcathracha in aice uisce glan na n-aibhneacha, is cúis bháis sinn freisin do na sruthanna céanna.

I dtosach ar ndóigh, d’úsáid daoine na Áthanna mar shlí dul trasna - sular tógadh droichead ar bith!

D’ól siad an uisce(mar a dhéanann go fóill) agus chaitheadar

amach ann séarachas agus dramhaíl. (mar a dhéanann go fóill..)

Bhi seo indéanta fad is a raibh pobal na mbailte sin beag go leor, mar tá abhain in ann iad féin a ghlanadh muna bhfuil an truailliú ró-throm; ach má cuirtear an iomarca salachar isteach iontu beidh na córais ocsaiginithe fé bhrú; tá gá leis na plandaí chun an uisce a choinneail úr, agus leis na plandaí sin tagann na inveirteabraigh, na h-éisc, agus i ndiaidh dóibh siúd, na h’éin agus na h-ainmhithe atá ar bharr an bhia-eangach. Gan amhras, tá an cruidín, an corr riasc, an dobharchú an-dathúil; ach brathann siad uilig ar cháilíocht an uisce díreach mar a bhrathan sinne.

Caithfear cúram a thabhairt dóibh má tá siad le teacht chucu féin ó na héifeachtaí is measa a bhaineann le h-idirghabháil an duine.

Go dtí le déanaí do bhí nios lú dochar in aibhneacha na h-Éireann ná in a lán áiteannna eile san Eorap; ach tá fadhbanna cáilíochta uisce ag a bhformhór acu anois, a d’fhéadfadh dul i bhfeidhm ar cháilíocht ár mbeatha agus ár ngníomhaíochtaí eacnamaíocha.

Ta leabhar tábhachtach nua foilsithe le déanaí faoi aibhneach agus molaim do gach duine é seo a léamh. https://www.ucdpress.ie/ display.asp?isbn=9781910820551& https://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/where-are-irelands-most-polluted-rivers-and-lakes-1.4110000 Irish Wildlife Spring ‘21

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19/02/2021 12:17

POCKET FORESTS

RECLAIMING OUR IDENTITY AS

forest people

AN URBAN FORESTING PROJECT SET UP BY CATHERINE CLEARY AND ASHE CONRAD-JONES IS PLANTING NATIVE WOODLAND IN URBAN AREAS 30

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POCKET FORESTS

Ashe at Mercy College Inchicore

W Stepaside

e have lost so much and found so much. A year ago I’m planning my next dinner as a journalist whose main gig is as a restaurant reviewer. But already my head is elsewhere. Writing about food and farming brought me to forests in November 2019 and a native woodlands training course with Powerpoint presentations in a hotel room in Enniskerry. As with all conferences the best bits happened in the breaks – chatting to a young forester about lucrative Sitka spruce compared to mixed native woodland, head versus heart stuff; or sitting beside the student with a plan for an organic tree nursery. “We are,” he said memorably, “a forest people who have lost our forests.”

Over lunch, a scientist explained ash dieback by opening his fingers to mimic the cup-like fungus which open on the spine of fallen leaves and release their spores into the wind to infect the next tree. An airbourne plague. Now it feels like a whisper of what was to come.

On the field trip to a Wicklow hillside, we stood where a deer fence had allowed oak and holly seedlings to grow bright and green through the brown leaves on the forest floor. Among those mother oaks and their healthy offspring, a deep sense of peace flowed up through my muddy boots and into my bones. It was miles from the noise, traffic and pile-driving frenzy of my inner city neighbourhood in the country’s most nature-deprived district.

For a few weeks it’s back to the “real world” of deadlines, feasts and veganuary. Then the real world is tossed in the air. My friend Ashe Conrad-Jones sees the shutters pulled down on her event business. We escape our new lives as homeschooling shut-ins to prowl our 2k lockdown with an idea – a Ted talk about Tiny Forests, an urban planting method that can put native woodlands into small places. It seems urgent and relevant in a way that everything else suddenly doesn’t.

We set about our research. Zoom conversations, advice and planting plans from India, Britain, The Netherlands and Limerick, where An Taisce’s education project ‘Choill Bheag’ is rolling out small forests. Everyone is helpful. Generosity comes with the territory. We figure out what we can use and what seems counter-intuitive and costly. We set up a social enterprise and call it Pocket Forests.

When I mention our hastily-built website in a piece hanging up my critic’s fork, people started contacting us from as far away as the west coast of America and as near as the road at the end of my street. We take on some garden clients and three schools. Then we work on soil using slow permaculture, no-dig and hugelkultur (a horticultural technique where a mound constructed from decaying wood debris and other compostable biomass plant materials is planted as a raised bed) ideas to get it breathing. We dip into the vast waste stream around us – bike shop cardboard to stop the grass growing, horse manure from city stables, coffee grinds, composted food waste, woodchip and jute coffee sacks from a local roaster. My husband jokes that our car now smells like a tractor.

“What would a forest do?” Ashe and I often ask ourselves, at first jokingly and now in all seriousness. Because forests start out scrappy and opportunistic. Pioneer species

grab whatever space they can and begin to try to build a forest system. And when the mowers or grazers or sprayers put a stop to their dreams, forests go elsewhere.

It’s as good a business model for a startup in a pandemic as you’ll find.

We have read and watched and learned so much about trees and their ecosystems and could spend the rest of our days happily continuing to do that. Even if you hate trees they do you good, quietly cleaning your polluted air, taking the burn out of hot days and the flood out of extreme downpours, making life feel lighter than it should, as the Pulitzer prize winning writer Richard Powers writes in ‘The Overstory’.

Architect Roger Ulrich proved their powers to aid recovery in the 1980s when he looked at the records of gallbladder patients in a Pennsylvania Hospital over nine years. The patients whose rooms had a view of trees recovered more quickly and needed less pain relief than the patients who looked out on a brick wall. Working with soil is richly therapeutic and enormous fun. The transition year students go from recoiling at worms to celebrating their gorgeous juicy presence.

We are digging where we stand and when lockdown eases we have soil ready for more than 700 trees, shrubs and wildflower seeds and plugs grown from wild Irish seed. This year we hope to figure out how to spread our pockets wider and dream of establishing an inner-city tree nursery. With less than 2% of our forests in native woodland, so few of us have stood in or smelled or listened to the sounds of an Irish forest, never mind had the chance to help create a version of one in our neighbourhood. To care about something, we need to know it. We need tangible experiences with nature. Forests, even pocketsized ones, can bring flourishing health and wonder to life in front of our eyes. We can facilitate them and then step back, letting the plants, who possess more wisdom than we ever will, do what they do best. Pocket Forests is as much a happiness project as it is an urban foresting one. In our depleted reimagined lives, we need hope of regeneration. Now more than ever. www.pocketforests.ie Irish Wildlife Spring ‘21

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WILDLIFE CRIME

THE WILDLIFE CRIME AND CONSERVATION CONFERENCE BROUGHT NEWS OF MEASURES THAT SHOULD RESULT IN MORE ACTION AND LESS TALK, WRITES PAUL GALLAGHER

Facing up to the threat of

Wildlife

CRIME " MASS POISONING EVENTS LIKE THE KILLING OF 23 BUZZARDS IN CORK LAST YEAR CONTINUE TO THREATEN IRELAND’S NATURAL HERITAGE AND POSE A SERIOUS RISK TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES AND DOMESTIC ANIMALS."

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ith a world in lockdown due to COVID, 2020 was the year many found solace in nature. Whether gardening, birdwatching or getting out for a walk, it brought relief from the restrictions and daily news headlines of mortality and infection rates.

However, although such new appreciation for the environment was welcome, similarly there were those intent on taking advantage of these restrictions to continue with its destruction. Although the law is clear on such matters, particularly in relation to hedge cutting etc, Ireland has always fallen short when dealing specifically with the issue of wildlife crime.

Wildlife crime is a significant and growing threat to species conservation, animal welfare and the environment. Globally, approximately €24 billion is generated

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WILDLIFE CRIME

‘Mary’ the hen harrier, poisoned in Co. Meath in 2020 Buzzard by Adrian Coleman

annually in wildlife crime-related activities (offences).

Mass poisoning events like the killing of 23 buzzards in Cork last year continue to threaten Ireland’s natural heritage and pose a serious risk to local communities and domestic animals.

The Wildlife Crime and Conservation Conference that took place in October last sought to highlight these issues and looked at methods to counter such activities.

Like most events planned for 2020, the event was online. The content of the two-day conference was split between ‘wildlife crime’, the focus of the first day and ‘conservation’ in the context of development and planning, forming discussion for the second day.

The event was opened by Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O'Brien who reaffirmed the government’s commitment to tackling wildlife crime by announcing the formation of a Wildlife Crime Unit within An Garda Síochána.

Representatives from both An Garda Síochána and the Police Service of Northern Ireland presented their inter-agency cooperation as well as the current methods by which both forces are dealing with wildlife crime. The National Parks and Wildlife Service added to this by showing its methods of recording and reporting such incidents.

Shooting and hunting fraternities, who were represented through the National Association of Regional Game Council (NARGC), presented ‘Shooting and The Law’ and made the ludicrous claim towards the end of this informative talk that buzzards had become a ‘pest’ species that needed adequate control.

Thankfully, the day ended with the announcement of a new wildlife crime reporting app which Lorcan O’Toole presented. The app forms part of an initiative by wildlife crime umbrella body Partnership Against Wildlife Crime (PAW Ireland) to record and pressure existing agencies within Ireland to step up monitoring and prosecution of wildlife crime.

PAW Ireland was formed earlier in the year by an array of wildlife NGOs with the aim of bringing together statutory agencies, non-statutory agencies and interested parties with the common goal of combating wildlife crime through publicity, education and campaigning. The app is currently still in development but it is hoped it will help minimise cruelty, torture, maiming and killing of innocent wildlife, by allowing users to: • Record and report suspected wildlife crime at the scene or afterwards if preferred • Easily report potential wildlife crime directly to the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) • Access simple guidelines on what to do and what not to do at a wildlife crime scene • Complete an on-screen form to record a suspected wildlife crime • Attach photographs from the scene which are automatically tagged with a GPS reference of the location It was developments of a different kind that formed the narrative for the second day of the conference. The planning and upgrade of public roads was covered by all agencies affected. From badgers to bats and owls to otters, the construction and expansion of our road network has had a massive impact on these species’ mortality in Ireland. With presentations given throughout the day showing the impact of such infrastructure projects on their environment, it is hoped that better planning for future initiatives can help alleviate the impact on some of our most threatened species.

With discussions and conversations taking place throughout the weekend whether in breakout rooms or during the Q&A sections at the end of each talk, Wildlife Crime and Conservation 2020 certainly succeeded in bringing an array of participants to the table to discuss these matters openly and respectfully. But with announcements made

by Minister Darragh O'Brien committing to the creation of a Wildlife Crime Unit and the development of a Wildlife Crime app, the event will be best remembered for making sure more action and less talk is taken to tackle wildlife crime in Ireland. *If you would like to contribute to the development and maintenance of the Irish Wildlife Crime Reporting app, please go to the recently launched GoFundMe campaign. They are seeking €3,000 per year to cover costs.

The PAW app is available now to download. Paul Gallagher is the secretary of PAW.

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CONSERVATION NEWS

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IWT PHOTOS OF THE MONTH 34

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CONSERVATION NEWS 2

3

4

5

10

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1. Paul Madigan 2. Conor O’Brien 3. Ben Whitley 4. Neil Halligan 5. Sinead Hickey 6. Edward Delaney 7. Adrian O’Carroll 8. Joanna Hodghton 9. Andrea Hunt 10. Paul Winter

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COMPETITION

COMPETITION In this issue of Irish Wildlife, members have a chance to win one of three copies of a fantastic new book about Irish Rivers published by UCD Press

R

ivers are said to be the veins, and streams the capillaries, that carry freshwater, the scarce lifeblood of the Earth. However, freshwaters are experiencing species extinctions at a rate faster than any other ecosystem, and human activities are threatening our survival through overexploiting and degrading water quality.

Rivers have been channelled, buried underground, dammed, diverted and polluted; some so over-abstracted that their waters no longer reach the sea. With abundant rainfall, Irish rivers are less damaged than many of those in other countries, but most have water quality problems that can impact the quality of our lives and economic activities, as shortages of safe water supplies have demonstrated.

This timely book aims to raise awareness of Ireland’s fantastic and often undervalued river resource, and the importance of changing our behaviour and policies to ensure that we keep it in a healthy condition for its sustainable benefits, as well as protection of its biodiversity.

The book captures the expertise of 39 Irish freshwater experts to provide an up-to-date account on the evolution of Ireland’s rivers and their flow characteristics, biodiversity and how humans have depended on, used and abused our rivers through time. Irish rivers include

types that are rare elsewhere in Europe and support a wide range of aquatic organisms and processes. In Ireland’s Rivers there are chapters on their hydrology and on their animal and plant life, on crayfish, fish and pearl mussels, and on aquatic birds and mammals, describing their importance and the threats to their survival such as pollution and loss of habitat. There are case studies of characteristic

but contrasting Irish rivers, the Avonmore, Burrishoole, Araglin and the mighty Shannon, and information on invasive aquatic species.

Water quality and river management are underlying themes. Ireland’s Rivers concludes with some suggestions for ways that individuals, households, communities and policy makers can help protect the health and beauty of our rivers and their wildlife.

We have three copies to give away. To be in with a chance of winning, just answer the following question:

What is the scientific name for the Eurasian Curew?

Send your answer, name and address to magazinecomp@iwt.ie by April 30th.

Winter Issue In our winter issue, we gave away three copies of John Boorman’s ‘Nature Diary’. The answer to the question was: Grey Seal and Common Seal. Congratulations to Eric Conroy in Dublin D12, Donal O’Farrell in Dublin 15 and Gerry Kane in Bagenalstown, Co. Carlow for getting in touch with the correct answer. Thanks to all who entered!

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Check out our shop for a range of gift ideas...

...perfect for the nature lover in your life!

iwt.ie/shop

We’re delighted to reveal our new Marine Protected Areas t-shirts and jumper range Available on @ Teemillstore www.irish-w ildlifetrust.teemill. com

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11/11/2020 11:55

18/02/2021 09:46

“The Badger Club is our Junior IWT Membership subscription.

JOK ES

What mak so better me pla es at m nts otheraths than s?

Squar e roo ts!

uldn’t the Why co plant any r gardene rs? flowe y! ’t botan He hadn

Badger Club is a quarterly magazine for Junior and Family members of the Irish Wildlife Trust. To become a member please go to our website https://iwt.ie/ support-us/become-a-member/ Like our Facebook page at facebook. com/IrishWildlifeTrust and follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/ irishwildlife

A E S Q A I X Q W X A X S X Z

Z Y F V W W V F R G N B U A Z

N U R E P I N U J R R M J L R

I P K H S T K K L H O M F T Y

E Y S S E C E U V J R S L B Q

S V R F D H O L L Y S K H O A

G I E O T E L T S I M K V J U

V N F R L S X E S I N W D Q D

C F I W G B I R B P U C X P U

Winter 2019/20

E A RC H W I N T E R N W B G I N K W V

K M O C R O E H X Q T N Q Z V

Text by Fergus DeFaoite Design by Barbara Vasic Front cover photo: Yew Taxus baccata, MHNT Muséum de Toulouse [CC BY-SA 4.0] Centre spread photos: Holly, Ruth Hartnup (CC BY 2.0); Ivy, Michael Maggs (CC BY-SA 2.5); Mistletoe, uncredited (CC BY-SA 2.0); Yew, Barbara Vasic Poster: Blackbird (Turdus merula) feeds on berries of ivy by blickwinkel / Alamy Stock Photo

M M C E V O Y E W R T M E J X

Q G B Y S M O X N V I T Y S H

BERRIES CONIFERS EVERGREEN HOLLY IVY JUNIPER

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U G A W Y Z F Z B S U L Y L V

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MISTLETOE SCOTSPINE WINTER WITCHESBROOM YEW

The Irish Wildlife Trust was founded in 1979 as a charitable conservation body, Charity No. CHY 6264. We provide the public with information about wildlife, run education and training programmes, carry out habitat and species surveys, campaign and lobby around biodiversity issues, restore natural habitats, consult with industry, agriculture and Local Authorities to maintain our natural heritage, and contribute to national and international forums for the protection of biodiversity.

The IWT is a nationwide organisation with a strong membership base, staff and Board of Directors, with branches in Dublin Galway, Kerry, Laois/Offaly, Longford/ Westmeath and Waterford.

Copyright Irish Wildlife Trust 2020. All rights reserved.”

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nt

J U W J C K F D E C R F H K J

What did the big flower say to the little flower?

What ’s up, bud?!

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MAGAZINE FOR THE JUNIOR MEMBERS OF THE IRISH WILDLIFE TRUST

erg re e n pl a

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Join the Badger Club to receive our quarterly junior magazine the “Badger” for €15 per year.

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The Badger is full of fun facts about nature and features an A3 poster in each issue.

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To join visit the Join IWT section on www.iwt.ie and select Junior Membership”

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