• Editor's Notes
• National Picnic Day – memories are made of this
• This Place Matters Donegal
• 10 Messages for 2010
• New Biodiversity Theme for Green-Schools
• FREE biodiversity training course
• Green-Schools Travel News
• An Taisce Contributes to Vital Pillar Submissions
• Preservation to Fight Climate Change
• Waste Policy Request
• Eddie Hobbs Fundraiser
• Contact Us

 

Past Archives

Jul 2010
Aug 2010

 

 

Ireland’s inaugural National Picnic Day will take place around the country on September 26^th, 2010. As announced in previous issues of this ezine, National Picnic Day aims to celebrate Ireland’s heritage and landscape.

 

 

Offering you a Sunday lunch-time with a difference, eat and relax in the early autumn sunshine with friends and family at one of the fabulous locations on offer to one and all.

 

Join people all over the country, pack a picnic and visit one of a selection of heritage properties around the country. Some are owned by us and are held in trust for the people of Ireland – for example the walled garden of Tailors’ Hall in Dublin 8. Other beautiful properties taking part are privately owned and never usually open to the public such as Rokeby Hall in Co. Louth. Birr Castle in Offaly will open for the day also, or choose an activity based site such as the Royal Canal in Mullingar.

 

More than a dozen sites, spread round the country have signed up to host a picnic and more events are being planned daily. Some Local Associations have also organised picnic events to coincide with National Picnic Day. The Donegal Association will be holding a picnic at Dunree Fort, Buncrana starting at 1pm; the Meath Association are organising a picnic lunch at Slane Castle complete with harpist and pipers followed by tea at Ros na Ri (to book ring Christopher Gray on 046 9431456) and although our property on the Burren is a bit wild for a sit down picnic the Clare Local association is offering guided walks on the day (email peter.wise.ie@gmail.com for details). For those who sign-up for National Picnic Day the fun will continue long after National Picnic Day as many of the properties taking part are offering discounts to those with the brochure, which means you can enjoy a selection of different types of heritage properties in the months to come
National Picnic Day is a fundraising and awareness raising event for An Taisce.
We know that memories are made of this, that reminiscences of a happy occasion like a family picnic last a lifetime and will influence the way people perceive heritage for the rest of their lives. We hope that from this small start an annual event that is part of everyone’s year will develop and grow. For people who want to join-in on this inaugural National Picnic Day please register for a picnic pack via http://realex.antaisce.org/picnic.html.

 

Register early and you will be entered into a raffle to win a beautiful National Picnic Day Blanket designed and produced by Avoca Weavers who are supporting this event by donating all proceeds from the sale of these blankets to An Taisce. The blanket features a beautiful design and the wonderful quotation from the founder of An Taisce The National Trust for Ireland, Robert Lloyd Praeger: " the flower-filled sand-dunes which fringe the Irish Sea; the fertile undulations of Southern Ulster; the fretted limestone shores of the great western lakes; the swift brown of the Barrow; the towering cones of the Galtees; all have left memories that can never be effaced"

 

The next part of the This Place Matters programme will be delivered in Letterkenny Co Donegal next Thursday (9th September). In addition to the evening training and information session focussing on the County Development Plan (starting at 8pm) we will be delivering an afternoon (2-5pm) of planning training focusing on submissions, and planning appeals to An Bord Pleanala and how to deal effectively with unauthorised development and enforcement. Tea, coffee and scones will be served. People can attend either or both sessions and the meetings will be held in the Station House Hotel Letterkenny. Non-members are also welcome at either session, so please spread the word and encourage any one who may have a view or an interest in the future of the development of Co Donegal to attend.

 

 10 Messages for 2010

Every month the European Environment Agency EAA is issuing a “message for 2010”, which will highlight one theme per month until the tenth meeting of the conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations convention on Biological diversity (CBD). Each message provides a short assessment focusing on a specific ecosystem or issue related to biodiversity in Europe. A summary of August’s message is below; follow the link to see the full message.

 

Mountain Ecosystems

European mountain regions provide essential ecosystem services for lowlands and host a great diversity of habitats and species, many adapted to specific extreme climatic conditions. Mountain ecosystems are fragile and vulnerable, and face severe threats from land abandonment, intensifying agriculture, impacts of infrastructure development, unsustainable exploitation and climate change.

 

To read more go to http://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/10-messages-for-2010-mountain-ecosystems

 

The message was written by Marcus Zisenis (ECNC, ETC/BD), with contributions from Dominique Richard (MNHN, ETC/BD). Martin Price (Perth College UHI), Amor Torre-Marin and Lawrence Jones-Walters (ECNC), Luboš Halada, Peter Gajdoš, and Július Oszlányi (ILE SAS).

 

The start of the new academic term this September sees the nationwide launch of Green-Schools most recent theme, Biodiversity. The timing could not be more appropriate as The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity.

 

Biodiversity is the fifth theme of Green-Schools and follows Litter & Waste, Energy, Water and school Travel. It is estimated over 200 primary and secondary schools will introduce the Biodiversity dimension to their existing programmes this year. In doing so schools will initially aim to increase awareness of the importance of biodiversity and understand its impact on our everyday lives. This can be done by surveying local ecosystems, habitat mapping and participating in species surveys and various other techniques.

 

To create a positive impact on the biological diversity of local flora and fauna schools will be encouraged to improve and preserve the natural quality of important local habitats such as; meadows, rivers, woodlands, coastal areas etc. In addition, schools may aim to improve biodiversity locally by undertaking various projects such as; planting native wildflower gardens, planting native trees, erecting bird boxes, organic gardening and creating nature trails.

 

The nationwide launch of the theme comes on foot of a very successful pilot programme and is the result of extensive inputs from schools, experts and practitioners, as well as An Taisce staff. For more information visit the biodiversity section of the Green-Schools website,

 

   

"As a school progresses through its Green Flag themes it adds new aspects to the environmental education the children receive. Schools will now add Biodiversity to the existing work on Waste and Litter, Energy, Water and Transport."

 

We are currently organising a FREE full day training session aimed at Local community and environmental activists, who may have a good overview of a range of environmental issues and initiatives but who may have little specific knowledge about biodiversity or ecosystem services. This will be held in on 9^th October in Tailors’ Hall Back Lane Dublin 8 , a sandwich lunch will be provided.

 

The training day will include Irish Habitats, ecosystem services, biodiversity policy and law, and biodiversity data sources and will include a practical afternoon field trip to put some of the newly discovered information into context

 

The event will be based on a series of illustrated presentations given by enthusiastic professionals with question and answer sessions and a discussion forum. To book on this training session, please email Abby on membership@antaisce.org with “biodiversity” in the subject line. This seminar is first come first served.

 

Proposed agenda

 

9.30 registration tea and coffee

10.00 biodiversity and ecosystem services, service provision of peat bogs, integrated catchment management and flood attenuation, coastal ecosystems

11.15tea/coffee conversation

11.30 plan strategies and legal instruments, European legislation, national policy framework, local heritage and biodiversity plans.

12.30 PP break

12.40 information sources web based biodiversity data, water quality data, effective participation

1.30 buffet lunch

2.30-6.00 field trip (destination to be confirmed) possible destinations include Lullymore Bog Wicklow Mountains/Brittas Bay

 

The Green-Schools Travel team would like to welcome back all schools working on the travel theme in the 2009 – 2010 school year and to thank them for all their hard work on developing travel plans promoting sustainable travel to school last year. With over 200 schools being awarded a Green Flag for their work on making the school journey more sustainable in 2010, it has been a busy time for Green-Schools Travel.   National Walk to School Week in May this year proved a huge success with many schools organising walking initiatives and sustainable travel events to and from school. Wednesday 19^th May was elected as National WOW (Walk on Wednesday) Day and the target of 20,000 children was exceeded with a total of 32,850 pupils participating in the National walking event in over 250 schools around the country.

 

In addition, a cross-border initiative was organised by An Taisce (ROI) and Travelwise (NI) during the week. As part of a whole school day of action, St. Tiarnach’s, Clones Co. Monaghan and St. Patrick’s Primary School, Co. Armagh both achieved 89% participation on the day with pupils either walking all the way to school or park and striding. Each school received a €500 voucher for an adventure centre in their local community at an awards ceremony in Clones Library, which was attended by teachers and students from participating schools, the Lord Mayor of Monaghan and a representative from the Department of Transport also attended. 

 

Equally, Bike Week 2010 (13^th – 20^th June 2010) was a big success with Green-Schools Travel involved throughout the planning and delivery stages resulting in over 3,700 pupils making their way to school by bike during the week. Green-Schools Travel Education Officers worked on the ground organising and working with schools to run their events. Wednesday 16^th June was designated as the Green-Schools National COW Day and pupils, parents and teachers were encouraged to cycle on this day or for the whole week. Schools from all over the country took part in lots of cycling events ranging from cycle training, bike maintenance to arts and crafts activities including mini bike modelling to designing a helmet. Many schools also took this opportunity to officially launch their cycle parking funded by An Taisce through the DoT’s Smarter Travel initiative. Schools also went on cycles either to a local park or through their town informing their local community of Bike Week 2010 and the bicycle as a mode of transport. 

 

For the fourth year running, Green-Schools Travel invited participating travel schools to enter this year’s competition. Students were asked to write a song, poem or short story on the theme of ‘What does Green-Schools Travel mean to me or my school’. The travel competition received over 1,000 entries of a very high standard and 19 prize winners were chosen across three different age categories. Each winner received a new bike and safety gear and a prize-fund was awarded to each winning school. This funding will be used for their Green-School’s programme to further develop environmental work in the school. The awards were held at a ceremony at An Taisce’s Tailors Hall and winners were presented prizes by Mr.Ciarán Cuffe, T.D., Minister of State for Planning, Sustainable Transport and Horticulture. 

 

 

An Taisce recently contributed to two submissions made by the Environmental Pillar which are summarized below:

 

The Pillar’s response to climate change legislation Click here Endorses the aims of the Government to follow examples of best practice established in UK and Scottish legislation. The three main planks of legislation are targets, carbon budgets and an independent expert committee that can advise government, particularly prior to a carbon budget each December. Carbon targets need to be far stronger than those currently projected and need to achieve 40% cuts from 1990 levels through purely domestic action by 2020. The environmental pillar notes that Irish legislation should harness Ireland’s renewable energy resources – an aim that An Taisce’s Energy Officer is also trying to facilitate. A specific point is made that a framework to reduce emissions that doesn’t include aviation and shipping is like a diet that allows cake and crisps! Carbon budgets, supported by specific strategies   should also be legally binding. Not withstanding the urgency of these matters the Environmental Pillar made a strong case that climate change mitigation measures must not undermine environmental protection laws or damage ecosystem services which should play an increasingly important part in adaptation measures – for example in buffering flooding.

 

The Pillar’s response to the Europe 2020 Strategy Click here. This is more dense than the previous document but is a good read and well worth the trouble with numerous quotes from other important documents such as the Renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy, the UK Sustainable Development Council’s prosperity without growth and the NERSC report on Well Being matters – a social report for Ireland.

 

The Environmental Pillar’s response is scathing of the concept of infinite growth and restates the view of the IPCC that “the current path of global development poses unacceptable risks.” Not only are considerations of the natural environment largely absent from the EU strategy but biodiversity decline is ignored despite the findings of the Economics of Ecosystem and Biodiversity Study that the continuous loss of biodiversity will cost the world at least 7% of GDP in 2050. “We have been living beyond our means both financially and environmentally.” “In Ireland we used more natural resources than the earth can replace in a year.” This response notes that incorporation of the Aarhaus Convention and environmental democracy, is fundamental to gaining buy-in from the public for the difficult steps that will be needed to develop a truly sustainable Europe. 

 

Investment in jobs, assets and infrastructure emerges as a key component of Europe’s strategy but this must be in the context of a new macro economics and new measures of economic well being incorporating protection from inequality in the distribution of incomes, to adjust for the depletion of natural resources and the social costs of carbon emissions. The 80 million below the poverty line across Europe and the many unemployed people in Ireland need to be included through the use of these accounts and creating resilient communities is particularly important in the face of future environmental and economic shocks.

 

The final pages summarise four important proposals submitted by the Environmental Pillar

• imposing clearly defined resource/emission caps
• fiscal reform shifting the burden of tax from income to pollution
• promoting technological transfer and ecosystem protection
• the protection of natural systems and ecosystems.

 

 

Much has been written of the important role of renewable energy generation and energy conservation in new buildings in the battle against climate change. But what has been missed is the even greater need to manage and upgrade existing buildings to reduce carbon consumption as opposed to new build. Existing buildings contain huge amounts of embodied energy which, provided they remain in use is effectively locked up. Add to that their locations in traditional settlements already fully serviced by roads, power lines etc saving further carbon from being released when new services are added for new sites and one can see that a reused existing building is in fact a very green one.

Recently our US sister The NTHP’s outgoing President Richard Moe received the Vincent Scully Prize and took “Preservation's Essential Role in Fighting Climate Change” as the theme of his address. This carefully crafted speech makes a number of key arguments linking building conservation to combating climate change, all easily transferable. For example “all transportation accounts for just 27% of America's greenhouse gas emissions, while 48% – is produced by the constructing and running buildings”. “It is estimated that constructing a new 50,000-ft commercial building releases the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere as driving a car 2.8 million miles”. “Since 70% of the energy consumed over a building's lifetime is used in the operation of the building, some argue that all the energy used in demolishing an older building and replacing it is quickly recovered through the increased energy efficiency of the new building – but that's simply not true.

Recent research indicates that even if 40% of the materials are recycled, it takes approximately 65 years for a green, energy-efficient new office building to recover the energy lost in demolishing an existing building. And let's face it: Most new buildings aren't designed to last anywhere near 65 years. It all comes down to this simple fact: we can't build our way out of the climate chaos, we have to conserve our way out. That means we have to make wiser use of what we've already built. Keep this in mind: No matter how much green technology is employed in its design and construction, any new building represents a new impact on the environment. The bottom line is that the greenest building is one that already exists. It's often alleged that historic buildings are energy hogs – but in fact, some older buildings are as energy-efficient as many new-built green buildings.

Many historic buildings have thick, solid walls, resulting in greater thermal mass and reducing the amount of energy needed for heating and cooling. Buildings designed pre-electricity feature transoms, high ceilings, and large windows for natural light and ventilation, as well as shaded porches and other features to reduce solar gain. Architects and builders used siting and landscaping to maximize sun exposure during the winter and minimize it during warmer months. Unlike their more recent counterparts that celebrate the concept of planned obsolescence, most historic buildings were built to last. Their durability gives them almost unlimited "renewability" – a fact that underscores the folly of wasting them instead of recognizing them as valuable, sustainable assets. Add upgrading insulation, new energy efficient systems and renewable energy sources and the result will be greener than new buildings in nearly all cases.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time – and will be for a long time to come. What's at stake is nothing less than life as we know it on this planet. The experts tell us we have no time to lose. The debate is over, and it's time to act. It makes no sense for us to recycle newsprint and aluminium cans while we're throwing away entire buildings, or even entire streets. This pattern of development is fiscally irresponsible, environmentally disastrous, and ultimately unsustainable. To replace it, we need national policy that directs growth to existing communities. While land-use planning has traditionally been a local government function, we need national policy that stops rewarding unsustainable development. We need policy that maximizes wise use of existing resources by enhancing the viability and liveability of the communities we already have. We need to improve green-building rating systems to ensure that they recognize the importance of building reuse. Under the current standards, for example, a new building can be certified "green" even if it's constructed outside densely populated areas; this kind of development amounts to "green sprawl," which is contrary to every principle of sustainability.” The full speech can be seen on http://www.preservationnation.org/about-us/press-center/soe/speeches/sustainable-stewardship-scully.htm