HARVESTING THE FUTURE ALL OVER THE COUNTRY, SCSI MEMBERS ARE ENGAGING IN PROJECTS TO IMPROVE THEIR LOCAL COMMUNITIES. HERE IS ONE SUCH PROJECT.
T
he Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem
variety of plant and animal life, and we all can have a part in this.
Service (IPBES) published its global assessment on the
Today’s landscapes, be they built or natural, are the result of
state of the world’s biodiversity and ecosystem services in
thousands of years of interaction by people in the natural process of
2019, and it showed that nature is declining globally at
evolution, and succession. Therefore, we should be mindful that
rates unprecedented in human history – and that the rate
subtle acts today may be remembered long into the future. It is also
of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impact on people
worth remembering the importance of embracing, retaining, and
around the world now likely.
maintaining our heritage for future generations where we can.
Practical conservation gives every person an opportunity to do their bit. In times where immense changes have continued to be made by
Treasuring our heritage
humans (which sometimes impose devastating or irreversible effects
The history and development of formal gardening in Ireland in the late
on the environment), it is all the more important that doing your bit
seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries can be seen in many places,
includes working in harmony with nature and leveraging what you can
and nowhere are you more likely to find it than in the remnants of a
to create balance and sustainable solutions to everyday problems.
demesne village.
Ireland’s biodiversity needs to be conserved to retain (and enlarge) its
The unassuming sophistication and beauty of the surviving historic
FEATURE Sarah Sherlock MRICS MSCSI AM
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SURVEYORS JOURNAL Volume 12, Issue 4, Winter 2022