Munster Express Online

The Copper Coast Geopark is pleased to announce a new and innovative project titled ‘Networks for Nature’, which aims to educate schools and empower local communities, Tidy Towns groups and schools to appreciate and enjoy the benefits of biodiversity habitats.
The project takes its name from the Irish Wildlife Trust’s new project also titled ‘Networks for Nature’ about to be piloted in south County Dublin through the Local Agenda 21 programme.
The Copper Coast Geopark will help bring together the Tidy Town groups, communities and national schools in the seven villages located in the Copper Coast Geopark: Annestown, Boatstrand, Bonmahon, Dunhill, Fenor, Kill and Stradbally.
The aim is to educate primary school children, families and visitors to the area on the importance and benefits of different biodiversity habitats.
Each village in the Geopark will create two biodiversity habitats from common areas in the village that are currently mowed. One will be planted with different Irish wild flowers, while the other habitat will be left to grow naturally.
The school children will learn how to conduct a science project by performing a flora and fauna audit of each site at the start of the project, a second audit at spring time and a final audit at the start of summer.
This will allow the schools to compare the different plants, animals and insects between the sites as well as learning about how plants and flowers grow through the seasons.
By bringing the seven communities together the schools will also be able to compare the flora and fauna in the seven villages arising from differences between coastal and inland habitats.
As a result of ever increasing pressures on habitats in the Irish countryside, communal village areas including roadside hedges and verges offer a sanctuary for wildlife and are recognised as important connections linking different habitats that are fragmented by roads, intensive farming and urban sprawl.
The decline of pollinators such as bees is well documented globally and in Ireland, and by allowing communal areas to grow wild flowers, this could help to halt this decline of important pollinator species.
Since its inception in 1958 the Tidy Towns competition has been improving the environment in which we live and has helped to foster Ireland’s image abroad.
The work of generations of Tidy Towns volunteers has helped to present Waterford in the best possible light, as a clean and green destination to visit.
In 2009 Stradbally Tidy Towns undertook a Heritage Council funded project to raise awareness of wildlife and biodiversity and introduce a Biodiversity Action Plan. A habitat map, botanical survey, and species audit was done and wildlife experts visited each of the local schools.
The Geopark’s ‘Networks for Nature’ project will help strengthen links between the seven villages to share ideas, learning and knowledge and create further opportunities to work together. It is hoped this project will mark the beginning of many future village collaborative projects in the Geopark area.
The mission of a Geopark is to explore, develop and celebrate the links between local geology and all aspects of an area’s natural, cultural and intangible heritage.
For more information on Copper Coast Global Geopark,
visit www.coppercoastgeopark.com.