Irish Wildlife Trust Spring 2022

ISSN - 1649 - 5705 • SPRING ’22

MAGAZINE OF THE IRISH WILDLIFE TRUST

’S AND IREL

SIT BIE FE LDL E W

AZIN MAG

Meadow

Making SPOTTED

IN IRELAND: • MIDGES • RAINFOREST • FALLOW DEER

WILDLIFE ART

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WELCOME

Chairperson’s Comment

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Cover credit: Jean Kilduff Contents page credits: Eurasian beaver: J Mrocek Grey Seal by Robin Barnes Bloomin meadow by Donna Rainey Narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth by Donna Rainey Kelp by Pádraic Fogarty Self-seeded oak sapling by Pádraic Fogarty

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All articles © 2022 No part of this publication including the images used may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the publisher.

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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Trust cannot be held responsible for any inadvertent errors or omissions contained herein.

Please recycle this copy of Irish Wildlife

’m Claire, and I’m thrilled to connect with you as the new chair of the IWT board of directors.

This time of year is magical and as nature awakens from its winter slumber, it’s just fabulous to see the buds on the trees and the spring bulbs emerge. I’ve childhood memories of great excitement when the golden yellow daffodils - one of my granny’s favourites - burst through the ground, and early pickings brought brightness into our home in early spring. Mam now carries on the tradition and daffodils are a firm family favourite which will always bring a smile to my face.

Spring truly is a time of new beginnings, fresh growth and excitement for the season ahead.

In this, our first magazine of the year, I’d like to say thank you to each of you for your membership, subscriptions and donations. By choosing to be a member, you equip the IWT to advocate for nature conservation and to raise awareness of critically important issues. This spring magazine is filled with interesting articles and valuable insights which are sure to inspire some energetic conversations in homes across Ireland. The photos of the month are simply stunning and well worth a moment of pause and reflection.

Throughout this edition, there is reason for hope.

Although there is no doubt that humans have caused immense damage to our planet, there is a real sense of urgency to protect, restore and nurture our natural heritage. The launch of “Fair Seas” drives action to expand our network of Marine Protected Areas; the investment in High Nature Value farmland in Ireland will see a change in narrative with farming for nature and this brings an opportunity to learn how to scale in a sustainable way for everyone involved. Of course with a reduction in restrictions, we can begin to get into the great outdoors again with our local IWT branches.

We each have a role to play in protecting our environment and while large-scale action by industry and government is critically important, we’ve heard from you that you would like tips on practical actions to take at home. A few top tips for today - simple is often best Eliminate pesticides to invite pollinators into your

garden and allow nature to flourish.

Go natural with real grass, wildflowers and a touch of neglect. It’s amazing how much life emerges when we leave things alone!

Plant pollinator friendly trees and bulbs - small trees or window boxes are gorgeous if space is limited.

Get involved with community initiatives, educate yourself, and share your insights with friends, family and local politicians.

I’d love to hear what you are doing or if you have tips to share.

People power drives real change. As I’ve immersed myself in the workings of the IWT, I’ve been inspired by the passion, skill and expertise that our IWT team and board members bring. I am in awe of the impact this dedicated group of people has had over time.

In the last year we have introduced new board members, and in some cases a change in responsibility due to tenure or external commitments. Rest assured that our outgoing chair, Seán Meehan, will continue as a key member of the board. Thank you Seán for your leadership!

In considering our strategy for the years ahead, we would like to build out our expertise and invite people with HR, legal or board governance experience to volunteer with us. We’re also considering our priorities for the coming years and would love to hear from you about national issues or how we could best develop our branch network.

If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out with a CV or note detailing your relevant experience. All input and ideas for our strategy are also welcome.

Wishing you the very best for a spring season filled with light, love, health and happiness. It’s a time for optimism and action to make a difference for wildlife in Ireland!

Claire Walsh

Chair of the Irish Wildlife Trust claire@iwt.ie

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.

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Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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CONTENTS

Contents 04 ABOUT US

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

07 CONSERVATION NEWS

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

10 ACTIVITY UPDATE

Updates on IWT campaigns and activities

16 MEADOW WONDER LAND

Bringing green deserts back to life with some TLC

20 IS IRELAND READY FOR BEAVERS?

Calling in nature’s engineers

22 WILDLIFE’S TIMELESS VISUAL APPEAL Is wildlife art set for a comeback?

24 THE GLOBAL FOREST

The diversity of tree species is revealed

26 IRELAND’S SUMMER SCURGE Get ready for the midges

30 THE FUTURE OF FARMING

Will the new CAP bring nature back?

32 BRINGING THE FOREST HOME Hometree is connecting us to our forest heritage

34 FACEBOOK PHOTOS

Our pick of the photos submitted to our ever-popular photo of the month contest run on Facebook

36 COMPETITION

Your chance to win a copy of two exciting new nature books

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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.

IMAGES THIS PAGE: TOP: Treble-bar moth c. K. Flood BELOW: Autumn Deer by James Grandfield

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.

Irish Wildlife is published quarterly by the IWT.

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/ Registered Charity Number: 20010966

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.

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 Limerick: limerickbranch@iwt.ie / https://www.facebook.com / IWTLimerickBranch Galway: Dan, iwtgalway@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/IWTgalwaybranch Laois/Offaly: Ricky, iwtlaoisoffaly@gmail.com, www.facebook.com/IWTlaoisoffalybranch Monaghan: monaghanbranch@iwt.ie

• 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.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Are we at the beginning or in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event?

With many species going extinct each year (23 species have been declared extinct in 2021, and that is only the number we know of), we are in situation that can be described as a biodiversity emergency.

In a paper published this year, a research team at the University of Hawaii in the US and headed by Robert Cowie presents data that leads us to believe there is indeed a mass extinction event occurring.

So far, the planet we inhabit has had five mass extinction events. Mass extinction events are defined as those where 75% or more of species vanish over a short period of geological time. In some ways this has led to the introduction of new species, and without these extinction events life on Earth would look very different. The table on the right shows the five extinction events.

What makes this sixth event unique is that it is being caused by human activity, a fact that has been acknowledged for the Time Period

past thirty years, if not longer.

There is currently debate as to whether a sixth mass extinction event is occurring.

Scientists are debating whether we are at the start, in the middle of the sixth mass

extinction, or if there even is a mass extinction event occurring at all. One thing that is well understood, is that we The five mass extinction events

Notes

Ordovician-Silurian Extinction: 86% of species lost. Believed to be caused by two major events: glaciation and falling sea levels. One theory also 440 million years ago suggests too much CO2 was removed by plants, causing a fall in temperature.

Devonian Extinction: 365 million years ago

75% of species lost. Theories suggest large land plants released nutrients into the oceans. This caused algal blooms, depleting the ocean’s of oxygen. Volcanic ash is also believed to have resulted in global cooling, wiping out many land dwelling species.

Permian-Triassic Extinction: 250 million years ago

96% of species lost. Thought to be the worst mass extinction event so far. Caused by an enormous volcanic eruption filling the air with CO2 which fed different kinds of bacteria that began emitting large amounts of methane.

The Earth warmed, and the oceans became acidic. Subsequently, ocean life developed a complexity not seen before and snails, urchins, and crabs emerged as new species.

Triassic-Jurassic Extinction: 210 million years ago

80% of species lost. Theories suggest an asteroid impact, or massive volcanic eruption released CO2 into the atmosphere (as well as dust and other gases), causing global warming. The extinction of other vertebrate species such as mammals on land allowed dinosaurs to flourish.

Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction: The most famous of them all. An asteroid or other cosmic event is widely believed to have caused the extinction of 65 million years ago dinosaurs.

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CONSERVATION NEWS

are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis with the number of extinct species increasing each year.

Robert Cowie, who is research professor at the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Biosciences Research Center, presents data in his paper 'The Sixth Mass Extinction: fact, fiction or speculation?’ (published in Biological Reviews, Jan 2022), showing it is likely that the sixth mass extinction has begun on land and in freshwater. Rather than concentrating on species such as birds or mammals, the researchers based their findings on studying extinction rates of molluscs, a large group that includes snails, clams, and slugs. While data collected by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) on birds and mammals is quite accurate, there is insufficient data on invertebrate species.

Some argue that there is no extinction event occurring, with claims that extinction levels have been overestimated and are not significantly higher than background levels. Some even claim that as humans are a part of the natural world, human-caused extinctions are part of the evolutionary cycle. The researchers counter these arguments by showing that extinction rates are indeed higher than the natural background level, particularly in the case of invertebrates. The IUCN Red List data used to determine extinction rates may also underestimate extinction rates with the exception of birds, mammals and maybe amphibians. By reviewing their own studies of extinction in molluscs and by extrapolation they conclude that since the 1500s between 7.5-13% (150,000260,000) of the 2 million known species may have been lost, conflicting with the 0.04% (882) noted as extinct by the IUCN Red List.

Reading the paper gives a sense of despair, with the authors acknowledging that conservation efforts for many species would be futile. They suggest that efforts should be made to record species and collect museum specimens for future generations to realise what has been lost.

Species of molluscs have the advantage of leaving their shells behind after death. But many species of invertebrate vanish without a trace, and without collecting specimens for future posterity would otherwise never be known.

Ultimately the researchers argue for the need for more urgent measures to address the loss of species.

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PHOTOGRAPH: DERICK HUDSON

I R I S H N E W S By Tim Clabon

Citizens’ Assembly on Biodiversity Loss The long awaited citizens' assembly to address the threats to biodiversity will finally be brought to cabinet by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, and could even be initiated as early as April 2022. Calls from environmental groups such as the Irish Wildlife Trust to establish a citizens' assembly on the biodiversity crisis date back to May 2019. Fianna Fáil motioned an amendment declaring a climate and a biodiversity emergency strengthening a Fine Gael motion ‘noting’ the report on Climate Action of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action.

In the Dáil in February, the Taoiseach said “I think it’s absolutely critical that we move on this and with speed and conviction and I intend to do that.”

Biodiversity is part of our life support system and humans are part of it.

Ecosystems have been destroyed globally as well as in Ireland, which is also tied in with climate change. One of the main issues is that the destruction of our ecosystems has been going on for a long time, and in many cases unnoticed, either by the trickle effect where species have slowly slipped away unnoticed, or simply not seen as many people don’t get to see what remains of our natural environment. A strong ecosystem with

high biodiversity will also make our environment resilient to change brought about by factors such as climate change or new diseases.

The citizens' assembly will give us a chance to take an overview of our natural environment and look at ways we can conserve and maybe repair ecosystems such as by putting the right to a natural healthy environment into the constitution and strengthening and implementing existing environmental laws.

Ireland has a good record for citizen assemblies and has always included a cross section of gender, age, class and regions. In particular we need to hear from the young, as they will inherit what we leave behind, and so they should have a voice in how we approach the protection of biodiversity in the future.

How the citizens' assembly to tackle biodiversity will work remains to be seen. Will there be a public consultation, who will nominate expert advisors and who limits what can be addressed? Given the close relationship between climate change and the biodiversity emergency will the assembly follow the approach taken by the assembly on climate change?

Time will tell.

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IWT NEWS

MARINE CONSERVATION  The Atlantic Ocean at Inishbofin, Co. Galway.

By Regina Classen, IWT Marine Policy and Research Officer

INTRODUCING FAIR SEAS: A NEW NATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CAMPAIGN WITH THE MISSION TO BUILD A MOVEMENT OF OCEAN STEWARDSHIP TO PROTECT, CONSERVE AND RESTORE IRELAND’S UNIQUE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

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ver the course of 2022, leading environmental groups, including the Irish Wildlife Trust, will join forces to launch a new campaign set to rapidly expand Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in Irish waters. Together we have built a national coalition campaign called Fair Seas seeking to protect, conserve and restore Ireland’s unique marine environment.

Our ambition is to see Ireland become a world leader in marine protection by designating 10% of its waters as fully or highly protected areas by 2025 and at least 30% by 2030, giving our native species and habitats the opportunity to thrive. The Irish government has also set a target to designate 30% of its waters as MPAs by 2030. However there has been no commitment on the level of protection to be provided by these MPAs, other than the support of the principles of the EU Biodiversity Strategy which includes a call for 10% ‘strict’ protection by 2030 and 30% protection overall.

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MARINE CONSERVATION

The current MPA coverage in Ireland is at a mere 2.1%, meaning a 15-fold increase is needed to reach the 2030 targets. In order to build support for well-managed MPAs among the public and make 10% fully or highly protected areas politically achievable, our mission is to build a movement of ocean stewardship across Ireland that energises and empowers people, to advocate for ambitious and robust legislation, provide impartial scientific data and research, and to propose a network of well-managed MPAs. Fair Seas campaign manager Aoife O’Mahony says “In January 2022, Ireland showed its passion for the ocean by protecting our waters from Russian missile testing. Voices from the fishing industry, government, environmental groups and the public were all echoing the need for action to protect our marine biodiversity and commercially important fish stocks. Fair Seas is now calling on those same voices to ask the Irish government to follow up and secure a network of effective well-managed MPAs.” Biodiversity: Ireland’s marine species, habitats and ecosystems are declining and face severe pressures from human activities.

We now have the opportunity to conserve and restore our seas while developing a renewed sense of ocean stewardship across Ireland, helping our island nation become a world leader in marine protection and giving our species, habitats and coastal 8

"VOICES FROM THE FISHING INDUSTRY, GOVERNMENT, ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS AND THE PUBLIC WERE ALL ECHOING THE NEED FOR ACTION TO PROTECT OUR MARINE BIODIVERSITY AND COMMERCIALLY IMPORTANT FISH STOCKS". communities the opportunity to thrive.

Climate Change: Our ocean is one of the largest carbon sinks on the planet, but when the seafloor and marine habitats are disturbed its ability to store carbon is reduced. Phytoplankton, seafloor sediments, seagrass meadows and kelp forests are some of the key players in ocean carbon sequestration and storage. MPAs have the potential to sequester enormous amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and help us keep in line with targets set out in the Climate Action Act. Legislation: In Ireland, there is currently no legal mechanism for designating MPAs. Fair Seas is asking our government to introduce robust and ambitious legislation so that our waters can be effectively protected, managed and monitored.

Stakeholder engagement: The designation and management of MPAs should be based on the best available scientific advice and

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MARINE CONSERVATION Kelp forests are important carbon stores  Spider crab in kelp

“IRELAND IS THE ONLY EU MEMBER STATE THAT STILL HAS NOT FULLY TRANSPOSED THIS [ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT] DIRECTIVE”

informed by early and sustained engagement with stakeholders and communities. Communities must be empowered to be the custodians of our natural and maritime heritage. The primary objectives of MPAs are to conserve biodiversity but they can also deliver broader cultural and socio-economic benefits when incorporated into a site objective and management plan.

Proposal for a well-managed MPA network: The campaign will publish its first expert report with a proposal for MPA locations this summer. Existing data of species and habitats occurrences from national and international surveys along with public sightings data were analysed to identify suitable areas for protection. The resulting proposal for an Irish MPA network will serve to kick-start the conversation around MPAs among stakeholders and policymakers at a time when national MPA legislation is being drafted by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

The report will provide best-practice management recommendations and suggest MPA network criteria; outline the main pressures on the marine environment and identify knowledge gaps. This report will be the campaign’s main advocacy tool to influence the ambition in the legislation and build public support for an MPA network that consists of fully or highly protected areas.

The groups involved in the Fair Seas coalition include the Irish Environmental Network, the Sustainable Water Network, BirdWatch Ireland, the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, Friends of the Irish Environment, Coomhola Salmon Trust, Coastwatch and the Irish Wildlife Trust. All of these organisations have been campaigning for many years for well-managed protected areas on land and in the sea. Currently, the only legal nature designations in Ireland’s seas are Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protection Areas (SPA). Ireland is legally obligated to maintain or restore these areas to a favourable conservation status under the EU Habitats (adopted in 1992) and Birds Directives (adopted in 1979). Even though these Directives have been in place for decades, the health of protected habitats and species has steeply declined since then. The underlying reason for the decline

is poor implementation of EU legislation across the board, which has led to the EU Commission referring Ireland to the EU Court of Justice on more than one occasion.

EU commission representative Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea at the Environment Ireland conference in January pointed to Ireland’s poor record on several fronts. He said “with less than 2.5 per cent of marine waters protected, this represents one of the poorest records across the Natura 2000 network in Europe,” and that “Ireland is the only member state that still has not fully transposed this [Environmental Impact Assessment] directive”, or indeed the Water Framework Directive. With such a poor record, it is especially important to have strong voices from the environmental NGO sector that are able to challenge government decisions in court if necessary. However, Mr Ciobanu-Dordea also pointed out the high court costs and negative media reporting faced by Irish NGOs when taking cases in national courts, saying that “it is highly unusual for an advanced society like Ireland to witness such conducts.” This systematic non-compliance with environmental laws while simultaneously oppressing those that might challenge any non-compliance is a truly toxic mix for nature.

The political will to protect the environment has historically been very low in Ireland. While the government is slowly learning to talk the talk, they are a long way from walking the walk. During a climate and biodiversity emergency, this snail’s pace is no longer acceptable. Fair Seas is inviting NGOs, the public and stakeholders from across the island of Ireland to come together to push for one clear common goal: well-managed MPAs. To achieve this, we will need to build a movement of ocean stewardship across the country that is too big to ignore.

Find out more about the Fair Seas campaign at www.fairseas.ie or contact us at info@fairseas.ie The Irish Wildlife Trust remains involved in an EU-wide MPA campaign with Brussels-based organisation Seas At Risk. Under this campaign we are aiming for better management of existing MPAs (SACs and SPAs) through proper implementation of the Habitats Directive at an EU and national level. Find out more at www.mpas-europe.org Irish Wildlife Spring '22

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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  The IWT reserve at Boora c. K. Flood inset: Sprawler moth

Update from Lough Boora This winter there were interesting developments at our IWT Lough Boora nature reserve in County Offaly. New species were found on site with help from volunteer surveyor effort and Moths Ireland, and we met Bord na Mona to discuss re-wetting of this peatland site.

Our Lough Boora nature reserve is located within the Lough Boora Parkland, a public nature parkland created by Bord na Mona in an area of cutover bog located just outside Tullamore, Co. Offaly. Our IWT nature reserve is found in a quiet corner of the parkland beside a Mesolithic archaeological site and just off the Offaly Way. The reserve is on the site of a former lake, called Lough Boora, which was drained in the 1950s. At the Mesolithic site adjacent to our reserve the remains of ancient human presence were found at a location thought to be the shoreline of the ancient lake.

While the site was never mined for peat, it was significantly drained and thus the peatland habitat is drying out and most likely emitting carbon in the process. The site today supports a mosaic of habitats including birch dominated bog woodland, scrub, poor fen and flush and pioneer 10

Molinia (purple moor-grass) grassland. We have previously recorded beautiful orchids, marsh fritillary butterfly, smooth newts and pine marten at this secluded reserve.

Earlier this winter we met with Bord na Mona ecologists at Boora who talked us through a proposal to block a number of the drains on and around our site as part of their greater Peatlands Climate Action Scheme at Boora Bog. The scheme involves rewetting thousands of acres of Bord na Mona peatlands in order to capture carbon and they offered to include our site in the scheme. The blocking of drains in strategic locations will slow down the drying out of our site and hopefully allow the peatland habitats to recover somewhat. We agreed to go ahead with the drain blocking work in order to preserve the peatland habitats and do our bit to contribute to carbon sequestration. We are at the early stages of this process and will report back with details in this magazine.

As well as the habitat restoration we also increased our knowledge of the wildlife of our Lough Boora nature reserve in 2021.

Thanks to the efforts of a dedicated volunteer we began moth monitoring on site. With such a diverse range of habitats

it was hoped that an interesting array of moth species would be found, and we were not disappointed! Our volunteer worked with support from Moths Ireland to identify the species found. Moths were surveyed on site with the use of moth traps.

These are simple traps placed out at dusk and opened in the morning at which point the surveyor records the moths inside and then lets them go unharmed. Traps were placed within the woodland and the open habitats on site. 53 different species of moth were detected within a few months including some rare finds.

Sprawler Asteroscopus sphinx moths were found at Lough Boora in November 2021.

Sprawlers are rare in Ireland and near threatened globally. Due to their rarity they are a priority species of conservation concern. The loss of broad-leaf woodland threatens the species. The species is on the 2016 Irish red list for macro-moths. Red lists are used to evaluate the conservation status of species and determine which species need urgent action. Sprawler moths have experienced an 85% decline in abundance in Britain (1970 - 2016) and a 34% decline in distribution during the same time period.

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ITW NEWS

 Treble-bar moth

The sprawler inhabits broad-leaf woodland. Adult moths occur from late October to early December. They have furry bodies and distinctive streaking. This distinguishes them from other moths flying during this time. After mating the females lay their eggs in the crevices of tree bark to overwinter. In spring, caterpillars emerge to feed on the leaves of deciduous trees.

Caterpillars pupate in a cocoon underground. The name ‘sprawler’ comes from the defensive posture of the caterpillar.

As well as the rare sprawlers, four nationally scarce moth species were recorded on site in 2021. Three of these species (blue-bordered carpet Plemyria rubiginata, bordered beauty Epione repandaria and sallow Cirrhia icteritia) are associated with damp woodland habitat.

Caterpillar food plants for these species include alder, willow and birch, which grow in abundance at Lough Boora. Monitoring data from Britain has shown an increase in abundance (1970 - 2016) in both bluebordered carpet and bordered beauty populations. Sallow has experienced a decline of 81% (1970 - 2016). Treble-bar Aplocera plagiata was the other scarce species recorded. This species is often found in open drier habitats and feeds on St. John's-wort.

We will continue exploring the biodiversity of our Lough Boora nature reserve and document the habitat restoration that comes about with the rewetting project.

Enjoy IWT Events Online and In-person this year By now I’m sure many of you will be familiar with the fantastic webinars we have been running every month. These webinars evolved as a response to the pandemic restricting our ability to run in person events. Our webinars are hosted by our campaign officer Pádraic Fogarty and feature Irish and international conservation specialists and practitioners speaking on a variety of topics from rewilding to marine protected areas to regenerative farming.

If you have missed them you can watch back on our YouTube channel (www. youtube.com/irishwildlifetrust) or check out the webpage (https://iwt.ie/whatwe-do/communication/webinars).

We are happy to inform you that we will be continuing our webinar series throughout 2022 but with the lifting of restrictions we are delighted that inperson events are returning. The majority of our events are free of charge and involve getting outside for walking tours and nature watching. With many of our local branches planning great events for the year ahead it seemed like a good time to remind everyone how to

find out about our old-fashioned inperson events and how to contact your local IWT branch.

Our events are listed on our webpage here https://iwt.ie/events/ but you can also follow your local branch on social media or join their mailing list to find out about events near you. You can email a branch near you to ask to be put on their mailing list.

See their contact details below; Dublin Branch Branch email dublinbranch@iwt.ie Galway Branch Branch email iwtgalway@gmail.com Kerry Branch Branch email iwtkerry@gmail.com Laois/Offaly Branch Branch email iwtlaoisoffaly@gmail.com Limerick Branch Branch email limerickbranch@iwt.ie Monaghan Branch Branch email monaghanbranch@iwt.ie Waterford Branch Branch email iwtwaterfordbranch@gmail.com

 IWT Dublin branch outing

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IWT NEWS

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

PLANTING TREES IS NO WAY TO CREATE A FOREST 12

The lack of forest cover in Ireland is now recognised as a major land use problem that must be addressed if we are to confront the multiple crises of biodiversity, climate and water. With this realisation brings growing support for drastically increasing tree cover to average European levels of 30-40%, a tripling or quadrupling of what it is today. The default response to this issue has been: ‘we must plant more trees’. However this would be a mistake.

Trees are only the most obvious component of a forest to human eyes and trees alone, such as those planted from

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IWT NEWS

 A self-seeded oak sapling

single species, do not make a forest. A real forest is composed not only of a diversity of tree species, but a diversity of ages (young, old and dead) as well as the animals, other forest plants, fungi and innumerable bugs and insects, including those in the soil. If we are to create areas for nature, water and carbon storage, as well as a resilient timber growing sector, we will need vast new areas of real forests and move away from plantations of monocultures. But how?

Over the course of the 20th century Norway went from 5% forest cover to 38%

while, even more impressively, Costa Rica and more intense weather events. went from 21% in the 1980s to nearly 60% Tree planting has its place. Sometimes today. This scale of forest restoration was there are simply not enough parent trees not achieved by tree planting but through in the landscape to colonise new ground rewilding – giving the land the time and in the kind of time we have available to space to naturally regenerate the forest. us. It is also popular and if people want The enormous advantage of rewilding is to get out and about and do practical that it allows nature to lead the way, projects for nature this should be knitting together the infinite connections encouraged. But if we are serious about in the web of life that create diversity, the scale of ambition then we simply must complexity and resilience in a way that put rewilding first and foremost in forest humans with their spades and saplings and land use policy. This starts with simply can’t. identifying the areas of native or semiRewilding has been accused of being natural woodlands that still exist. These merely land abandonment but that is areas are treasure troves of biodiversity incorrect. Land degradation in Ireland is and it’s a continuing scandal that they are so severe in many instances that much so poorly protected. But with the right work will be needed to control invasive measures they can be restored and then species, reintroduce missing species, allowed to expand. A study found that reduce grazing pressure from sheep and jays (a colourful member of the crow deer or to block drains in bogs to restore family) can ‘plant’ 7,500 thousand acorns hydrology. But the idea in a month. With the behind rewilding is that help of the jays, the over time less and less of THE BUREAUCRACY remnants of our native this type of intervention NEEDS TO forests could expand is needed so that natural ACCOMMODATE and we should then be systems become self- NOT ONLY THE helping to join them sustaining. together so that instead DIVERSITY IN Some places, like wet of hundreds of isolated NATURE BUT THE bogs, are not suited for pockets of woodland we dense forests and nature DIVERSITY IN OUR have fewer, larger and knows exactly where COMMUNITIES. healthier forests. those places are.

Misconceptions about Rewilding can harness that wisdom so what rewilding entails has led to a that human interventions do not reluctance to even use the word in official inadvertently damage natural processes. circles. However, we cannot afford to Some tree planting schemes, including maintain this taboo. We absolutely need some of those being sanctioned today, are a system that works with landowners and exacerbating the environmental crises, rewards them for switching from farming putting the wrong trees in the wrong to forest regeneration and, paradoxically, places – such as on sites with rare ground- a way of doing this is to encourage high nesting birds or on biodiverse meadows. nature value farming schemes. Rewilding The current system is resulting in bad need not eliminate farming from a given decisions that will have to be undone, landscape so long as farmers have a range along with the enormous legacy of poorly of options available to them. Some farmers located plantations that have been planted will want to rewild all of their land, some since the 1950s. none at all, while others may be happy to Tree planting projects can come with have a mix of both. The bureaucracy needs thousands of pieces of plastic, from cable to accommodate not only the diversity in ties to guard tubes which stop the saplings nature but the diversity in our being eaten, and which are difficult to communities. retrieve. It can also be hard to be sure of Giving nature the time and space to get the provenance of tree saplings, even those on with healing our damaged landscapes of native species, and this is a problem as will be a challenge to the accepted wisdom local genetic stock provides greater that humans know best and that we need resilience than imported seedlings. And to be in control. But we cannot and should we’re going to need a lot of resilience in not ignore the fantastic power of the face of the rapidly changing climate rewilding.

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IWT NEWS

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

LEGAL ACTION ON OVERFISHING

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c. Cory Arnold

Much of environmental campaigning is trying to find new ways of saying the same thing over and over. The fight against overfishing has been a case in point.

Campaign groups have worn themselves out urging politicians to respect the science on fishing quotas to stop the overexploitation of sea life. In 2013, we thought we had won a victory when the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was reformed and the EU committed to ending overfishing.

Specifically, Article 2(2) of the CFP provides that “in order to reach the objective of progressively restoring and maintaining populations of fish stock above biomass levels capable of producing maximum sustainable yield, the maximum sustainable yield exploitation rate shall be achieved by 2015 where possible and, on a progressive, incremental basis at the latest by 2020 for all stocks”.

However, 2020 has come and gone and still 15% of commercially exploited fish populations (commonly referred to as ‘stocks’) in the North East Atlantic remain overfished (47% are fished within sustainable limits while 37% are unknown).

While we have seen some admirable push back from the European Commission on the allocation of quotas, clearly fisheries ministers, including Ireland’s Charlie McConalogue, have no intention of complying with the law in this regard. However, a recent High Court ruling may signal that change is in the air.

With the support of Client Earth (see www.clientearth.org) Irish NGO Friends of THERE IS the Irish Environment A FUTURE (FIE) took a legal case against the Minister for FOR FISHING Agriculture, Food and COMMUNITIES the Marine and the BUT ONLY IF Attorney General. The WE SERIOUSLY purpose of the case was CHANGE HOW to ask the Irish High WE FISH. Court to refer the application of Article 2(2) of the CFP to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU, as the CFP is European rather than Irish law). In what is seen as a hugely significant ruling, the court found in favour of FIE. It means the

CJEU will now adjudicate on the topic within the next 18 months or so.

The ruling from the Irish judges contains some interesting statements. The Irish state had argued that the requirement to end overfishing entirely was only one among a number of stipulations and that it was the job of the fisheries managers (i.e. the member states) to find the right balance between competing social, economic and environmental interests.

In particular, they made the case that where fish are caught using indiscriminate methods, particularly bottom trawling, it is not possible to catch one fish species while avoiding others. These are commonly referred to as ‘mixed fisheries’.

The state acknowledged that following zero catch advice for a species in a mixed fishery (as had been the case for a number of species, including cod and whiting) this would shut the fishery down completely. This, they maintain would be an unacceptable outcome. However, the Irish High Court clearly found against them. They stated that the requirement to end all overfishing “is more than just an aspirational objective of the CFP” and that the court “has serious doubts about the legality” around the annual regulations that allow for quotas to be issued over and above the scientific advice.

The application of scientific advice, particularly when it is advised that zero fish in a mixed fishery be caught, would indeed result in the closure of whole chunks of the EU fishing fleet, particularly those dependent upon bottom trawling and dredging. However, we also know that due to the ecological destruction caused by these fishing methods, including greenhouse gas emissions and enormous levels of ‘by catch’, that ending these fisheries is indeed what needs to happen. In a way, it should be looked at in the same bracket as the fossil fuel industry or peat mining. Continuation of bottom trawling is simply not compatible with protecting the ocean. There is a future for fishing communities but only if we seriously change how we fish. This will mean short term pain for some, but it is the only way a healthy future can be secured for both nature and people.

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MEADOW MAKING  Donna’s restored meadow

GREEN DESERTS CAN BE BROUGHT BACK TO LIFE WITH KNOW-HOW AND TLC.

BY DONNA RAINEY

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f I had to choose my favourite habitat to visit, it would have to be native wildflower meadows. I fell in love with our native wildflowers when I was a child. The 10-minute walk to the bus stop every morning and evening, along roadside verges and hedge banks, taught me to recognise the most common of our wildflowers. I sometimes gathered samples to bring to 16

the school nature table, another important way to learn about nature and become familiar with the names of the plants and trees around us. Dandelions, buttercups, yarrow, wild strawberry, vetches, lady’s bedstraw, dog rose, honeysuckle, foxglove, cleavers and cow parsley were just some of the common plants on those verges. But even back then, growing up in the 70s, wildflower

meadows were not part of the farming landscape. The land then was predominantly green fields, largely devoid of flowers.

All the fields on our farm had names and my favourite was called McNeill’s field, presumably named after a previous owner. Unlike the other uniformly green fields, this one had an area of “rough grazing” and wet areas which included a

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MEADOW MAKING  Donna’s field in July 2021, after five years of management

small fen and some gnarly old willows and alders. Here I learned about flowers that preferred wet conditions, and they were exotic to my young mind. Marsh cinquefoil and bogbean were two of my favourites. Lady’s smock, valerian, meadowsweet and greater bird’s foot trefoil were others. This type of land was completely undervalued. It wasn’t productive, it didn’t serve any purpose as far as farming was concerned. It was seen as somewhere that needed “improvement” and drainage.

Twenty years ago my dad was approached by a forestry company offering grants to plant up unproductive bits of farmland with sitka spruce and a few broad-leaved trees. They planted every single wet area, every corner of any interest, and right into the fen. The remainder of McNeill’s field only escaped planting as it was good ground for growing potatoes, barley and ryegrass! It was utterly depressing to see dense planting of sitka spruce in such a precious area, it still enrages me! The forestry company sold this idea as an

environmentally friendly way to turn nonproductive areas into profitable land. More depressing still, is the fact that this afforestation of quality grassland habitats continues unabated to this day. I see so many meadows in Donegal now converted to plantations. The value of these meadows to wildlife and for carbon storage is far superior to this type of planting.

Six years ago my dad sadly passed away and true to his word he left McNeill’s field to me. At that point in time the land had been let to local farmers who managed it Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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MEADOW MAKING

intensively for crops. The previous year it had been planted in winter barley and under-sown with Italian ryegrass. So I inherited a field of silage. There was only one thing to be done: have it cut and baled for silage in late summer and then sow yellow rattle seed on the closely shaved surface. I borrowed a small lawn seed sower from my mum and walked randomly across the two hectares sowing the yellow rattle as evenly as possible to achieve maximum coverage. Yellow rattle, aka the meadow maker, is a native annual wildflower which parasitizes the grasses around it, stealing their nutrients and weakening them, creating space so wildflowers in the seed bank have an opportunity to grow.

Apart from the dense grass cover, the other issue was excessive nutrient levels in the soil. For years the land had received very generous applications of slurry and fertiliser. Only removal of hay/ silage each year can reduce the nutrient load, so each year that passes the soil conditions are more suitable for wildflowers and less favourable for vigorous grasses.

Another issue was that the ground had been sprayed with many applications of herbicide over the years, and I wasn’t sure how this had affected the soil fauna.

Ploughing also had affected soil structure. I had quite low expectations for what might grow naturally, but I wanted to find out, so initially I didn’t sow any seed other than yellow rattle.

The following spring I was really pleased to find tiny seedlings of yellow rattle coming up. Germination was slow and quite erratic, but over the summer a reasonable cover was achieved. There weren’t many species of wildflowers, some clovers and dandelions… but it was early days! Ryegrass was still dominant. I repeated the process of cutting silage/hay each August and adding more rattle seed. Year three brought much excitement, about 30 leaf rosettes of common spotted orchids appeared. There were more wildflowers too: buttercups, dandelions, clovers, along with native ox-eye daisy and common knapweed. The grasses had also changed, Yorkshire fog was now dominant.

A few Hereford cattle were introduced in winter to graze off the fresh grass 18

growth and provide some light trampling to open up spaces for seeds to germinate in. Each year the meadow has improved with numbers and species of wildflowers.

It is very reassuring to see how nature can bounce back given the right conditions.

Year six, last summer, exceeded all expectations. There were literally thousands of common spotted orchids, some northern marsh orchids, bird’s foot trefoil, red clover, knapweed and cat’s ear.

The orchids are significant in so many ways. Their seeds are so tiny that they can’t germinate and grow unless there are specific fungi in the soil which help nourish the seedling. Healthy soil with a good fungal component is so important for plant growth and carbon storage.

Orchid growth suggests the soil and meadow are recovering from the intensive nature of previous farm practices. I also noted that there was a healthy earthworm population. Back in 2016 I had planted a hedgerow around the meadow perimeter and noted how few earthworms were

present at that time.

Each spring I am full of anticipation for how the meadow will look. Each year brings new surprises, it is fascinating to see the distribution and number of flowers, the various grasses and sedges.

During the lockdowns of the past two years, time spent in this meadow brought me intense joy. Watching and listening to the hum of bees, hoverflies, butterflies, moths, birds, small mammals too, it was difficult to remember how this meadow had looked only six years earlier. I cannot put into words just how good it feels to know that my efforts have brought about such a transformation in a few short years.

The project with this meadow really whet my appetite for meadow creation/ restoration. Close to where I now live there is an old, established meadow, predominantly of devil’s bit scabious. I have been visiting it for the past 20 years.

It changed ownership and was no longer being regularly grazed. Occasionally it was mob grazed by ponies and donkeys

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MEADOW MAKING  The field in May 2019, during the third year of management

 Narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth

by Donna Rainey

and they overgrazed it, leaving it in summertime resembling a bowling green.

Then it wasn’t grazed for a year or two and again overgrazed by ponies. This random and sporadic grazing left me wondering what the long-term prospects would be for this meadow. When the grazing was timed right, this meadow was a sea of blue and alive with pollinators, but there were few flowers or pollinators when it was too intense. In recent years it had become rank and rushy and was losing diversity. I decided to find out who owned it.

An elderly neighbour was able to tell me who the landowner was and confirmed it was an outlying piece of land which was included in a farm sale. The owner had not used the land and he felt they might be interested in selling it. Fast forward six months and the deal was done: I am now the happy owner of over 1.2 hectares of meadow and some bog woodland, an absolutely beautiful piece of land.

Because there had been no grazing for several years the meadow was thatched

Yellow rattle by Zoë Devlin

with old dead vegetation and rushes. My partner and I fenced the area and brought in the trusty Herefords to graze it. There’s only so much old growth that grazing can sort out, so after the cattle were removed, two friends and I spent several mornings scything and raking off the grass.

This is a very different meadow from McNeill’s. It is long established, has never been ploughed nor sprayed. The meadow is south facing. Exposed sunny banks are home to several species of mining bees including ashy mining bees. There is a big

population of the leaf beetle Galeruca tanaceti which feed on the devil’s bit scabious. Last autumn I watched one of the gravid female beetles climb a flower stalk and there she laid her tiny orange eggs and coated them in a protective secretion. I checked on them the following day and they had changed in appearance and looked like a mini pinecone. I had seen these clumps previously and had no idea what they were, and now I knew!

Devil’s bit scabious is the food plant of two rare species: marsh fritillary butterfly and the narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth.

In the past three years I have discovered both of these species in adult and juvenile form in meadows close to where I live.

The excitement and joy I experienced finding these two stunning creatures, sometimes in good numbers, is something I will never forget. I had only ever seen them in Donegal and Fermanagh before and didn’t expect to see them so close to home. Unfortunately, marsh fritillary do not fly far from their birthplace, so I don’t expect to see any in my new meadow. The nearest population I know is a few miles away. I’m not sure if the narrow-bordered bee hawkmoth travels further, but I remain hopeful!

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WILD IDEAS

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e are postgraduate students in UCD’s innovation academy, studying Design Thinking for Sustainability. We recently completed a project exploring the many issues with river water quality in Ireland. As this was a theoretical project, we had the freedom to use ‘blue-sky thinking’ and landed on a radical solution: introducing beavers to Ireland in a controlled trial to measure their impact on flood mitigation and biodiversity. We expected a significant amount of pushback to our proposal, and, while some people expressed legitimate concerns, we were amazed at the level of support, from both ecological experts and private citizens.

Shockingly, since the 1980s, the number of Ireland’s ‘pristine’ rivers has fallen from 500 to just 20. Healthy rivers are a vital natural resource, supporting a vast range of species and habitats, while providing clean water for domestic, agricultural and industrial use, and supporting recreation and tourism. The quality of our rivers is also inextricably linked to our ability to manage the effects of climate change and address the biodiversity crisis.

One of the strengths of our multidisciplinary team - which might be surprising given the context - is that only one member has experience in ecology, with the rest coming from backgrounds in education, cultural studies and television.

We tackled this challenge from every angle and benefited from having almost no preconceived ideas about the cause of the problem and why existing solutions did or did not work.

One of our earliest conclusions was the absolute necessity of minimising hard engineering projects as a solution to flooding. Changing the shape and flow of water bodies by physical alteration is the second highest cause, after agriculture, of loss of habitats and poor river water quality.

In reality, finding a solution that utilises natural capital - the free services provided by nature - can be a more efficient and less resource intensive approach than even the most sophisticated human interventions.

Enter beavers - nature’s very own engineers! The Eurasian beaver was hunted to extinction in Britain 400 years ago and, although no evidence has (yet) been found that they reached Ireland, we know they evolved in a broadly similar habitat. Beaver dams modify habitats and landscapes through the creation of ponds and wetlands, 20

IS IRELAND

READY FOR ?

BY AISLING BYRNE, SARAH JOHNSTON, ROB McCORMACK, FRAN MCNULTY especially in hard-to-reach places. By storing large volumes of water, they can reduce the risk of rivers bursting their banks during heavy rain and rectify low flows during droughts as the leaking dams recharge streams. The dams can also filter silt and chemicals out of the water.

In the UK, a number of recent reintroduction trials have demonstrated many positive impacts including a significant improvement in biodiversity through to the restoration or creation of new ecosystems.

In Cornwall, beavers’ dams slowed water flow rates from a few minutes to over an hour, while filtering pollutants in an area with heavy agricultural run-off.

The potential differences in cost is astounding. The Irish government has pledged over €100 million towards flood relief schemes in 2022, most of which will be spent on hard engineering. In Scotland, the cost of managing beavers in a 6,000km area for one year was £91,000.

This is not to suggest beavers are the solution to all our problems, only that they merit consideration as part of a toolkit of natural methods to improve water quality.

There are many other factors to consider, from impacts on migratory fish to localised farmland damage, but the majority of people we spoke to were open to the idea of a trial, provided rigorous evaluation

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

Eurasian beaver  Beaver dam near Stockholm, Sweden

measures were in place. We had an offer of a potential host site and help to develop a working group and funding application support beyond our wildest expectations!

What appealed to people in particular was the speed at which beavers can regenerate degraded ecosystems, an essential factor in achieving significant change in the short window we have left.

It was this openness to the idea of naturebased solutions that surprised and encouraged us most. There is a growing shift in mindset towards working with, not against, nature to restore what we have lost and build resilience to face the challenges of the future. Whether beavers should be brought to Ireland is a debate for another day. What is not up for debate is the necessity of tackling the enormous climate and biodiversity crises we now face. We need to push ourselves beyond the boundaries of our chosen fields and build meaningful multidisciplinary collaborations that involve all voices. Now is the time for radical solutions. We are not experts but this project demonstrated the potential for anyone, regardless of background, to think big and put an idea out there. You might be surprised at the result!

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GORDON D’ARCY

Is wildlife art set for a comeback? writes GORDON D’ARCY 22

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PHOTOGRAPHS: ISTOCK

GORDON D’ARCY

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hen the little narrow-gauge train came to a halt, we stepped out into the pitch blackness. A searchlight illuminated the void, its wide beam sweeping across the roof of Rouffignac cave.

And there it was, a trio of two-horned woolly rhinoceros, almost at touching distance above our heads: a painting created

by Ice Age hunter-gatherers some 20,000 years ago; a hair-standing sight.

Other caves in the Dordogne region of

France revealed paintings of mammoths, bison and wild horses, many cleverly formed in 3D using rounded outcrops of rock, all startlingly realistic. Lascaux cave, containing many of these images, has been described as a ‘Palaeolithic Sistine chapel’.

A sign of our times, however, this cave, now closed to the public due to the occluding effect of human exhalation, has been substituted by a facsimile, a ‘virtual Lascaux’.

Wildlife rock art, though generally not as ancient or as well realised as Ice Age cave art, occurs in many other parts of the world.

In the Namibian desert hundreds of animals – rhinos, elephants, giraffes, lions and sundry antelopes – created by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, festoon rock outcrops in places where such big game is sadly, no longer found.

Highly stylised native art from Australia and Canada depicts recognisable creaturessnakes, lizards, birds-of-prey etc.- in distorted, sometimes sinister form; designed apparently to link the human tribe with the otherworld. Though originally prehistoric, this art continues today as an important expression of aboriginal culture.

One is struck by the innocent authenticity of prehistoric art, suggesting in its various iterations, direct inspiration, something often lacking in the ‘staged’ images for popular consumption in contemporary photography and film.

Ireland has long been seen as belonging in the oral and musical, rather than the visual side of the artistic spectrum. It is true that, despite the intensive searches at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, no wildlife art has been found in our caves.

However, the beautifully designed curvilinear metalwork of the Late Bronze Age with its bird and animal motifs show that the visual appeal of wildlife was alive and thriving then. The extravagantly stylised and often playful images featuring wildlife such as cranes, otters, wolves etc. of the Early Christian Period (e.g. The Book of Kells) also reveal this visual connectedness.

Stiff, two-dimensional images of wildlife in Medieval texts, are presented thus as perceived threats to human society. Wolves, foxes, bears, bats, snakes, rats, mice etc. feature prominently. Giraldus’ Topographica Hiberniae contains such images as do the bestiaries, popular throughout Europe in this period. In contrast, Medieval Oriental art emphasises the intrinsic beauty of wildlife. Iconic species such as tigers and spectacular birds – particularly cranes – feature prominently. The stylised images of

dragons and fanciful sea-creatures decorating the margins of western Renaissance maps may have derived from this Eastern tradition.

The early 19th century bird paintings of John James Audubon represent a major advance in the quality of wildlife art. His fine life-sized paintings of America’s birds caused a sensation when first produced and remain among America’s most revered masterpieces. Another American, Roger Tory Peterson, succeeded in popularising wildlife through the illustrated field guide.

The accurate two-dimensional format, (initially of birds), has been utilised in facilitating the identification of mammals, butterflies, flowers, fish and other forms of wildlife besides. Since its initiation in the mid- 20th century, virtually every country on the planet has its wildlife field guide, based on Peterson’s revolutionary idea.

Despite its distinguished lineage, wildlife art nowadays has been relegated to the status of ‘artistic subset’, inward-trending post-modernism, for instance, showing little interest in the subject. With the looming concerns of climate change and its potential impact on all life and an inevitable artistic response, it may well emerge once again to prominence.

One place where it has retained its currency, is in the classroom among children. Despite the current dominance of screen-based education, hands-on, creative learning continues apace.

Encouraged, primary school children draw and paint uninhibitedly, not just friends and family but also subjects from the wider world, including wildlife. Smiling dolphins, whistling birds, brightly coloured butterflies and flowers are favourite subjects.

Importantly, when encouraged and directed, this engagement can become a valuable, enduring link to understanding and respecting the natural world.

Though the Ice Age cave paintings suggest this child-like uninhibitedness, their function remains shrouded in mystery.

Were they depictions of hunt scenes, or representations of shamanic rituals? Do they conceal a mysticism lost through time, unfathomable today? Awesome (in the true sense of the word) and seminal this art certainly is. The timeless impulse to create and display art appears to have begun with wildlife painters on cave walls and students of art in general must reference this as their starting point.

Gordondarcynature.com Instagram: @gordondarcynature Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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SPRING FOCUS

The THE MIND-BLOWING DIVERSITY OF TREE SPECIES IS BEING REVEALED WRITES BILLY FLYNN

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SPRING FOCUS

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ome years ago, I was taken to visit a wildlife rescue facility near Melbourne, Australia. This was during the first week of my one and only visit to that country and my cousin rightly believed that I’d like the chance to see some iconic Aussie animals in real life. It didn’t disappoint. Within minutes we were up close and personal with some extremely laid-back koalas and possums. During the few days I’d been Down Under, I’d heard people mention different kinds of eucalyptus trees, often with lovely descriptive names like strippy bark, ironwood and red gum. And now, one of the volunteer guides was talking about which types of eucalypt are preferred by koalas. In my ignorance, I had never thought about there being lots of different eucalypts. Until now, outside of the occasional arboretum, I’d only ever seen them as a curious addition to a suburban Irish garden. So, when the guide wasn’t busy, I confessed as much and asked him how many species of eucalyptus there were. “Oh God” he said. “Probably three hundred or so”.

I clearly remember how instantly dubious of that figure I was but of course I said nothing at the time to betray that and just filed it away to be checked later.

A few weeks later I was on a rather thrilling boat trip in Queensland. This time to see crocodiles, although not at such close quarters.

The pilot was also our guide and during the times when we weren’t seeing any sinister reptiles sliding into the water or lolling menacingly on its surface, he kept up a steady chatter on what trees and plants were overhanging the river and growing along the valley slopes. In conversation later, when he informed me that he was a botanist by training, I knew I had my fact-checker. I told him of the figure I’d been quoted in Victoria and he shook his head. “No, no. More like eight hundred and something. Still counting”. I was gobsmacked.

We’re just not that used to many different types of trees here in Ireland, I suppose. One of my favourite tree books listed 42 species we could count as native. In Ireland’s Woodland Heritage (2012)1, John Cross includes 36 species in the native list (with one as a possible introduction – purple willow, if you were wondering). Maybe this is the reason why I’d never bothered myself to wonder how many tree species there are worldwide. This February we found out, or at

least, got the best guess that has ever been made.

Ready?

There are an estimated 73,300 species of tree on planet Earth. That’s not the best bit. The really big news is that around 9,000 of these have yet to be discovered. The study2 by a massive team of ecologists and other scientists worldwide combined tree abundance and occurrence data from two global datasets – TREECHANGE and the Global Forest Biodiversity initiative – to form the biggest database of tree knowledge yet assembled. The study used the information we have on the roughly 64,000 known and documented tree species and used a novel statistical method to estimate the total number of unique tree species at biome, continental and global scales. To be exact, the researchers’ modelling arrived at a total of 73,274 tree species, meaning that there are a likely 9,200 species of tree yet to be discovered.

About 40% of the trees still ‘out there’ are considered likely to be in South America where there are 27,000 species known. This makes this continent the greatest ‘hot-spot’ in terms of diversity of undiscovered species. It also underlines the importance of conservation in this part of the world where existing manmade pressures from logging and climate change are already making their effects felt. The model also showed that around one third of the undiscovered species are likely to be rare, meaning that these are more vulnerable to extinction than those rare species we have already documented. While the data suggest that South America harbours the most new species, tropical and subtropical forests on all the other continents have far more unique species than previously thought.

While we have no news of new tree species in Ireland, we can still play our part in protecting them elsewhere. This includes sourcing our timber and other forest-derived products from sustainable activities, supporting international agencies that offer communities alternatives to agriculture which may necessitate deforestation and by sticking to our own climate commitments.

As humble as these seem in the greater scheme of things, the onus is on us as a ‘developed’ nation to play our part. As this article is being written, inflation is driving up pressure on our household budgets and there are calls for a moratorium on the carbon tax. These must be resisted. Inflations come and go. Extinctions only need to occur once.

1. C ross, J.r. (2012). Ireland’s Woodland Heritage. Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht.

2. G atti et al. (2022) The number of tree species on Earth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) February 8, 2022 119 (6) e2115329119; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2115329119

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

Irelands Summer Scourge e g d i eM Th

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CITIZEN SCIENCE

 Daisies

H

umans classify midge species by their most important and obvious trait: whether they bite or not. Both biting (Ceratopogonidae, particularly Cuculiodes impunctatus) and nonbiting (Chironomidae) midges belong to Order Diptera (the flies), and as such, their lifecycle is composed of four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.

All stages are aquatic except for the adult phase. Midge eggs are found in or near waterbodies and, after dropping to the bottom, can take up to ten days to hatch. After hatching, larvae proceed through four instar phases (with accompanying exoskeleton moults) before a short pupation.

Midges are found in and around almost all freshwater habitats in Ireland. Their specific habitat defines the habits of the individual larva; for example, aquatic midges build burrows and tubes in sediment and sand, as well as developing distinctive colouring as camouflage. The larvae, often called bloodworms, take on a red tinge, as a result of the presence of haemoglobin. This chemical allows the larva to survive in low oxygen conditions.

Midges themselves have a varied diet that may include shredded vegetation and algae, filtered nutrients from decayed organic matter, as well as small macroinvertebrates, worms, and the like. Nonbiting midges usually stick with this diet in their adult phase. Biting midges need blood, BY ANNE SUNDERMANN as do all breeding females, as a blood meal supplies necessary proteins for egg development.

CHEMICAL ROMANCE From fertility to blood feasts, the chemical senses play a major role in the lifecycle of the midge. Renowned ecologist Tom Eisner noted that “all living organisms emit, detect, and respond to chemical cues.” Insect species pass through life using chemicals for a multitude of purposes, including finding food, eluding predators, and most importantly, mating. For example, a female midge relies on exhaled carbon dioxide levels as a guide to suitable prey and detects this airborne chemical compound with her antennae.

Pheromones act much like social media influencers, supercharging midge behaviour. These chemical compounds, whether carried by wind or found in soil, vegetation, or water, are picked up in the antennae and travel over neuronal pathways to chemoreceptors located in the midge olfactory centre. These chemical impulses are combined with taste, touch, sound, smell, and sight to guide and boost the desired behaviour.

Bombarded with external input, midges translate these chemo-sensory messages into a number of chemically Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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driven behaviours, particularly sexual reproduction and mating rituals. The presence of sex pheromones enhances species and gender identification and assessing the viability of the potential mate. Although the female midge tends to be the receptor of the courtship pheromones, both genders can signal and receive these cues.

Scottish researchers have identified a sex pheromone (n-heptade-cane) used by the biting midge. In a 2003 New Scientist article, researcher Jenny Mordue describes how “When the virgin female bites, chemicals from the host’s blood stimulate increased pre-mating grooming behaviour and mating attempts.”

TAKING FLIGHT If pheromones act like Instagram influencers, the aerial swarm is the midge version of Tinder. After emerging from the water, adult midges file a brief flight plan— from three to five days—and amass in gatherings that are often so large that they seem like clouds or plumes of dark smoke. These clouds of nonbiting midges are mostly adult males showing off in the hope of attracting and mating with females.

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ENVIRONMENTAL SENTINELS High population density such as egg clusters and swarming adults create an opportunity for predation of midges, both in the water and in the air. The eggs and larvae are primarily eaten by fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates such as dragonfly larva, whereas the adult midges provide sustenance for a variety of fish, birds, spiders, and other insects.

Birdwatch Ireland’s Ricky Whelan outlines the benefits of midge swarms for migratory common swifts, an amberlisted species of conservation concern: “Studies of swift foraging behaviour have shown Lough Neagh and the huge hatches of ‘Lough Neagh fly’ as an important source of food for nesting swifts in Belfast and within a radius of the lake.”

Midge larvae, with their diet of decomposing organic matter, help recycle nutrients and support the health of waterbodies. Midges also offer clues to the past. For example, researchers used the presence of Chironomidae in the fossil record of a Holocene-epoch lake system in western Ireland to assess the influence of climate and temperature changes.

In present day, forensic experts use Chironomid larvae to gauge how long a corpse or animal carcass has been submerged.

Macroinvertebrates such as the egg, larval, and pupal midge are valuable tools to gauge water quality and aquatic biodiversity. The chemistry of the aquatic midge habitats differs between species and can range from being intolerant of heavily polluted conditions (and act as an indicator of high-quality waters when present) to conditions that call for a tolerance of low oxygen and other adverse water conditions such as eutrophication, that is, overly enriched waters from harmful runoff.

With thousands of species globally, midges are successful and adaptable invertebrates. There are 500 species of nonbiting midges and approximately 23 species of biting midges in Ireland; together they are a critical part of a healthy ecosystem.

EGG

ADULT LARVAE

PUPA

LIFE CYCLE OF A MIDGE

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FIADHLÚRA

Saol príobháideach an choinín

T

á an giorria Gaelach (Lepus timidus hibernicus) ar cheann de thrí lagomorf a fhaightear ar Oileán na hÉireann agus an t-aon lagomorf dúchasach. Den dá speiceas lagomorfach eile, tá giorriacha donn le fáil i dTuaisceart Éireann (ach tá siad gann) -- agus coiníní, go forleathan.

Ní i gcónaí a bhí coiníní inár measc! Thug na Normannaigh coiníní isteach go hÉirinn sa 12ú haois mar bhia, agus níor bhfad go scaip siad ó na coinicéar; agus tá siad coitianta anois ar fud ár n-oileán. Is breá le coiníní (poill a thochailt) agus is é sin an fáth a gciallaíonn a n-ainm Laidine, cuniculus, (Áit faoi thalamh) Déanann na baineannaigh an chuid is mó den tochailt: go háirithe le haghaidh pórú.

Tochailteann an mháthair choinín poll

beag agus leagann sí stuáil ann.

Bíonn suas le deichniúr leanaí ag coiníní i ngach ál.

Saolaítear na leanaí gan fionnaidh agus bíonn siad dall. Ar an drochuair, ní mhaireann an chuid is mó de choiníní fiáine fiú go dtí dhá bhliain d’aois, cé gur féidir le coiníní peataí maireachtáil go dtí deich mbliana d’aois nó níos mó.

Cé go n-aithníonn gach duine coiníni, agus cé go bhfuli siad chomh coiteanta, is gnách nach mbíonn mórán eolais ag daoine fúthu.

Féadann gach páiste insint duit faoi choinín na Cásca, no b’fhéidir Brer Rabbit; nó an Coinín Bán i scéal Alice; agus ar ndoigh, scéal agus scannán Watership Down.

(Is fearr an leabhar ná an scannán, i mo thuairim féin!)

Deir údar an leabhair, Risteard Adams, sa réamhrá go dtagann an t-eolas speisialta atá aige ó leabhar tábhachtach eile “The private life of the rabbit” le R M Lockley Chuaigh mé ar lorg an téacs-leabhair seo; bhí sé liostaithe i gcatalóg na leabharlainne áitiúil ach níor eirigh liom teacht air…tar éis cuardach fada do fuarthas é ar sheilf i rannóg na bpáistí!

Ach cé go bhfuil íomhá síscéalta ag coiníní, ní leabhar leanaí é seo ar chor ar bith; téacsleabhar zó-eolaíocht atá ann.

Ba mhian le Lockley dianstaidéar a dhéanamh ar choiníní - tar éis dó iarracht a dhéanamh iad a dhíbirt. (Iarracht gan toradh, mar is eol do gach feirmeoir.)

Do thóg sé seomraí faoi thalamh le ballaí gloine agus bhí sé in ann súil a choinneáil ar ghníomhartha oíche agus laethúil na gcoinín; Ba é an chéad duine a thug faoi deara go leor nósanna nach bhfacthas riamh cheana; streachailtí cumhachta idir cheannairí; na baineannaigh ag déanamh neadacha dá leanaí; agus, ar ndóigh, iad ag tógáil foscadh ón aimsir fuar nó ó na creachadóirí a sheilg coiníní le haghaidh bia - sionnaigh, easóga, madraí - agus daoine!

Molaim an leabhar seo d’aon duine atá ag iarraidh fíor-eolas a bhaint amach ar bhitheolaíocht choinín agus ar a saol sóisialta.

Cé nach leagann coiníni uibheacha Cásca, tá miotas amháin fíor: póraíonn siad go han-tapa; is féidir le coinín baineann cúpláil laistigh de sheachtain tar éis breith a thabhairt dá báibíní Is féidir seisear leanaí a bheith acu, gach mí sa samhradh - sin go leor coiníní !

Tugadh an coinín go hÉirinn ar dtús mar bhia - ní ainmhí dúchais é.

Má éiríonn leat coinín fiáin a ghabháil, beidh beile maith agat as; i rith an chogaidh d’itheadar a lán coiníní nuair a bhí feoil búistéara gann. Mar thoradh, nil meas ag seandaoine ar choinini mar dhinnéar. Ach dar liomsa, Is mias blasta é!

Tá coiníní feicthe agam i ngach cineál áiteanna; ag rith thart eastát tionsclaíochta i mBaile Átha Cliath, ag léimneach thart timpeall chlós iarnróid, ag teacht amach as clós meanscoil.

Faightear iad beagnach i ngach áit…tá an-teacht aniar iontu i gcoinne i gcoinne achrann mór.

Mar sin an chéad uair eile a fheiceann tú coinín, cuimhnigh gur ainmhí casta é a bhfuil a shaol príobháideach féin aige.

Beannaigh leis!

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FRONT LINE

THE NEW COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY AIMS TO ENHANCE THE ECOLOGICAL QUALITY OF 400,000HA OF FARMLAND. BY DR JAMES MORAN

THE

Future OF Farming

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0,000 farmers in Ireland will be part of an exciting new approach to the management of High Nature Value (HNV) farmland in Ireland. The government has recently submitted its draft Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) Strategic Plan to the EU Commission which details a planned investment of €750 million in agri-environment-climate measures targeted at HNV farmland for the period 2023-2027. It comes at a time when innovative approaches within our food production systems are urgently needed to improve the environment in response to the declared biodiversity and climate emergency.

The landscape of Ireland has been shaped by millennia of agricultural activity and today food and fibre production accounts 30

for over 75% of the land use of the Republic of Ireland. The intensity of production is not uniform across the country and we see a gradient in production intensity from intensive agricultural systems in the east and south-east being replaced by extensive production as we move towards the west and north-west. The extensive production systems are characterised by a high proportion of semi-natural vegetation including semi-natural grasslands, wetlands, heathlands/peatlands, scrub and woodland. These areas have been described as HNV farmland since the early nineties.

HNV farmland areas cover approximately one third of the agricultural area of Ireland with 50% of this recognised as some of the most important nature conservation areas in the EU. These areas are associated with species and habitats of international

importance, are important cultural landscapes and can provide a range of ecosystem services including space for nature, carbon storage, flood alleviation, water quality maintenance and extensive food production. To-date, lack of a coherent policy framework and poor targeting of policy to the unique characteristics of these areas has seen continued decline in environmental quality as illustrated in national and EU environmental monitoring programmes. Given the diverse nature of the agricultural landscape of Ireland it is clear that a one size fits all agriculture policy is not appropriate. Policy objectives across different land types need to be locally adapted to the natural land use potential of the area.

Over the last 10 years Ireland has made significant strides with local pilot projects

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CITIZEN SCIENCE  LEFT: High nature value farmland in Co. Galway INSET: Agri-environment ‘Co-operation Project Areas’, from Dept. of Agriculture, Food and the Marine

for a range of important habitats and species, funded under the EU LIFE programme and CAP European Innovation Partnership projects. These local partnerships have fostered a farmercentred approach to the design of solutions and are focused on delivery of tangible results. This is done through the development of bespoke payments and farmers are provided with administrative, advisory and research supports. What has emerged is a common framework for the design and implementation of payments for ecosystem services. A range of supporting actions are incorporated into the projects aimed at improving habitat quality and ecological restoration. What started with approximately 150 farmers in the Burren in 2010 grew to over 2,000 farmers across diverse landscapes in

various projects by 2020.

The new CAP 2023-2027 aims to secure the future of agriculture and forestry and is being formulated in challenging times with Brexit, the global Covid-19 pandemic and the need to contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal. How to upscale this successful, locally-adapted, results-based approach has been a key challenge over the last two years of negotiation on the design of Ireland’s CAP Strategic Plan. It was recognised that a national generic approach to agri-environmental management was not appropriate and an alternative approach was needed in order to ensure “the right measure in the right place”. The result is that Ireland’s draft CAP Strategic Plan has adopted two broad streams to its design of

agri-environmental climate measures.

Firstly, the “Agri-environment Climate Measure (AECM)-General” is a national approach to improve environmental performance outside identified high priority geographical areas. Secondly, the “AECM Co-operation Project” approach sees the addition of bespoke farm and landscape/catchment level measures targeted at high priority geographical areas identified as HNV farmland and highstatus water bodies. These high priority geographical areas identified as some of the “most sensitive and challenging lands” in the country have been divided into eight cooperation projects. These eight areas extend across the west coast from Donegal to Cork and include eastern upland areas from Waterford to Louth.

Over the next six months we will see extensive work on the recruitment of specialist local support teams, drafting of local areas plans and the detail of the design of bespoke farm and landscape actions with co-benefits for nature, climate and water for the eight cooperation project areas. This is all in preparation for the commencement of farmer contracts for the delivery of environmental services in early 2023. We have learnt over 10 years of testing and trialling that the system in 2023 must appeal to farmers’ head (understandable and practical), heart (farmer proud of and respected for what they achieve) and pocket (contributes to viable farming business) in order to shape a new narrative around farming for nature in Ireland.

We must be under no illusions that scaling up successful local initiatives to this level will be challenging. However, we must also acknowledge that there are over 1.5 million hectares of potential HNV farmland in the country and in this context the target of 400,000 hectares for targeted action in the CAP strategic plan is modest.

This new initiative must be welcomed and supported. We must build towards larger transformation of our food and wider land use systems post-2027. Eight years remain of this crucial UN decade of restoration when we must see significant progress on preventing, halting and reversing the degradation of ecosystems in Ireland and worldwide.

James Moran is a lecturer in ecology at Galway Mayo Institute of Technology Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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FEATURE

The Illaun Farm-Forest EIP Cores, Corridors, and Communities

by RAY Ó’FOGHLÚ

F

or Hometree, and for many readers of this article, the idea of extensive tracts of native woodland in Ireland's western uplands is a thrilling proposition, however, talk of such things without reference to the communities being asked to change can create real challenges. Woodland creation, especially at scale, is a sensitive issue in rural Ireland, presenting serious social, cultural, and economic difficulties. Compounding this sensitivity is the reality that many communities feel let down by the forestry model pursued in recent decades, a model now in disarray.

In the hope of demonstrating an alternative approach, Hometree created 32

the Illaun Farm-Forest EIP (European Innovation Partnership), a project which we hope acknowledges the identity, concerns, and aspirations of rural Ireland, as well as the perilous state of its biodiversity.

Hometree is a native woodland charity.

Our model is to acquire land, place it in trust and return it to ecological health. We are ambitious in our work. In the years to come, we envisage creating hundreds, if not thousands of acres of wild woodlands.

Some through planting, some through natural regeneration, and all solely in the service of nature.

Early on in our journey, we came to see farmers as key allies in our mission. Most of us had, in one way or another come from

farming backgrounds, so it was a decision that came easily. Our desire to work closely with farmers is based on the reality that no matter how much land the trust holds, it will pale in comparison with the amount of privately owned farmland in Ireland roughly seventy percent of the total. What happens on this land will be the single most influential factor in Ireland's biodiversity crisis. We believe if we can work constructively with farmers, we can exponentially increase our impact on the ground.

Now, more than ever farmers need support, especially those wishing to create native woodlands. They have been let down by the Irish forestry system. In the early nineties state policy shifted responsibility

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FEATURE

 Surviving patches of native forest typically follow rivers or steep gullies. Photos by Ray Ó’Foghlú  Atlantic hazel woodland.

for woodland creation to the private sector and onto private land. The afforestation which followed was intensely commercial in nature and caused great environmental harm, culminating in 2018 with findings of regulatory malpractice made against the state in the European Court of Justice. The model has become deeply unpopular, particularly in areas with high percentages of land planted.

Today, woodland creation, of all types, has come to a standstill. Landowners, environmentalists and industry are united in demands for reform. At the exact time Ireland needs a healthy forestry sector creating diverse, accessible, multifunctional forests, we seem to have crashed the sector headlong into a wall.

It is in this atmosphere we created the Illaun Farm-Forest EIP. The starting point for our project was a network of littleknown sessile oak woods clinging on in river valleys near Miltown Malbay, Co. Clare. In 2021 we sought funding from the Department of Agriculture, Food, and the Marine to work in partnership with local

farmers, to increase the size, quality and connectivity of these woodlands.

Our EIP is now up and running and fully subscribed. We are delighted to be working with a fantastic group of farmers. The first step for each is a visit from our foresterecologist team. We walk the farm, share ideas and create a plan to integrate native woodlands in ways that are useful for biodiversity and also useful to the farmers.

We wish to counter the common perception of forestry as a land-use that displaces farming and instead, present it as a complementary land use. On the ground this takes the form of shelterbelts, windbreaks or riparian woodlands. Once established, these trees will provide shelter for livestock, intercept polluting nutrients and sediments from entering watercourses, and increase on-farm habitat, as well as providing connectivity at a landscape level.

For larger areas our forester works closely with the farmer to make a native woodland scheme application, which will generate a new income stream.

Land-use change can pose difficult questions for farmers around purpose, identity and at a collective level - way of life. There is a very real fear of being the one that undid previous generations’ work clearing and draining the land. One farmer on our programme said “you can hear them in the pub saying “he has gone and planted the farm” - like there has been a death in the family.”

At a practical level, trees displace grass, which leads to livestock reduction. A farmer may risk being out of step with peers or subject to the perception of having ‘failed’ to farm successfully. Afforestation also devalues land, and current government

policies offer little recompense for this. As parents, many farmers worry if this type of change is in their children’s best interests.

On our farm visits we grapple with these issues, and although we are making great progress, it is clear we do not currently possess the necessary policy tools to fully allay concerns.

We imagine a future landscape of significant wild spaces interspersed with vibrant farming communities. The large ‘core’ areas can be composed of semi-state land (Bord na Móna and Coillte) supplemented with new and expanded national parks acquired through noncompulsory state purchase. For the farmland between, we believe small locally adapted programmes such as our own, schemes which are sensitive to landscape and culture, can integrate nature in the form of native woodlands, wildflower meadows, or active bogs. The efficacy of such programmes has been demonstrated by the Burren Life and the Bride Projects.

A common feature of which is that they are delivered within the community, often by the community, in response to issues known best to the community.

Blunt top-down policies have failed.

Maybe in this time of crisis, the only way to go big is to think small.

Ray Ó Foghlú is the Landowner Engagement Coordinator at Hometree – a charity based in County Clare (www.hometree.ie). The Illaun Farm-Forest EIP is funded by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. See our competition page for a chance to win a copy of Under Summer Pastures, a collection of new writing collated by Ray. Irish Wildlife Spring ‘22

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PHOTO OF THE MONTH

IWT PHOTOS OF THE MONTH

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Autumn Deer by James Grandfield Merlin by Mar y Broughall Curlew by Brenda Sheridan Red Kite by John Murphy Grey Seal by Robin Barnes

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PHOTO OF THE MONTH 3

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COMPETITION

COMPETITION

In this issue of Irish Widlife you have a chance to win one of two great new books! We have three copies of ‘Under Summer Pastures’ and one copy of ‘The Irish Butterfly Book’.

Under Summer Pastures Explorations and Essays from Ireland’s Temperate Rainforests

“Our most ancient rainforests are still here, living amongst us, but not often revealing themselves, hiding out in valleys and cliffsides. Globally, these woodlands are rare. In Ireland, they are rarer still, but fragments of a once-great Temperate Rainforest persist, clinging on in our western uplands. Under Summer Pastures invites you on an adventure into their wonders, it’s a chance to walk in these unique landscapes with Ray Ó Foghlú as your passionate and informative guide.

Woven through Ray’s woodland visits are contributions from some of Ireland’s leading environmental thinkers, offering a blend of practical, magical, and personal responses to the rainforest. Stories and essays from Mark Boyle, Dr Catherine Farrell, Pádraic Fogarty, Trevor Halpin, Clare Heardman, Rory Hodd, Paul Kingsnorth, James Rainey and Grace Wells, and with a foreword

by Manchán Magan, make Under Summer Pastures a timely exposé of the challenges our endangered woodlands face and the prevailing philosophies that will determine their future. It’s both a call for action and a breath of moss-filled air, a book that wants you to get out in the wilderness, and maybe do everything in your power to protect it.” Available at www.hometree.ie

The Irish Butterfly Book byJesmond Harding

The culmination of over 25 years of study, the Irish Butterfly Book documents the full life cycle of every Irish butterfly from egg to adult butterfly and includes over 400 original colour photographs which are truly stunning. There are one or more photos for each life stage of every species making this book the first of its kind.

Among the contents of this book are: butterfly ecology, gardening advice, butterfly life cycles and behaviour, a site guide to the best places in Ireland to see butterflies.

The book also has its own YouTube channel where you can enjoy film footage of Ireland’s butterflies. Beautifully presented, with a large font size and accessible text, this book is a great addition to the Irish wildlife bibliography.

Further information: https://butterflyconservation.ie/wp/2021/12/06/the-irish-butterfly-book/ ISBN 978-0-9560546-1-6. Softback. B5 size. Full colour printing, 328 pages. €35 Contact: jesmondmharding@gmail.com

To win one of these great books just answer the following question:

What is the name of the Irish wild flower that is sometimes nicknamed ‘the meadow maker’?

The answer is somewhere in this issue!

Send your answer, name, address and the book you would prefer to magazinecomp@iwt.ie by April 30th 2022.

Winter issue.

In our winter issue we gave readers a chance to win two copies of Steve Cracknells’s The Implausible Rewilding of the Pyrenees and one copy of The Peatlands of Britain and Ireland by Clifton Bain. The answer to the question is Cottonweed (a critically endangered plant being rescued by the National Botanic Gardens). Congratulations to Annie O’Rourke from Kilmallock, Co. Limerick, Ronan Desmond from Terenure, Dublin 6w and Deborah Martin, East Douglas, Cork. Thanks to all who entered!

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Wild CCalendar alendar endarr 2022 20 022

www.iwt.ie

h oop p iwt.ie/shop ho

Introducing the new Irish Wildlife Trust membership card.

Please fill in your name, cut out and keep your new membership card to present at talks and other events.

Membership Card 2022

Individual members, please fill in your full name. Family members, please fill in your family name. Card valid until end of 2022.

Cards valid until the end of 2022.

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“The Badger Club is our Junior IWT Membership subscription.

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

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

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

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