Mayo nature boost as six groups receive grant support
MAYO community efforts to protect and promote local plants, wildlife and nature are getting a major boost with six projects being supported to develop and implement local action plans.
The plans are being supported under a long-standing partnership between Community Foundation Ireland and its philanthropists with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Under the partnership communities across the country are provided access to expert ecologists to decide the best ways to protect or promote wildlife and then to implement through the action plan.
The latest Mayo groups to receive funding are:
Balla Community Resource Development (€6,000): to provide new willow structure, bird and hedgehog boxes in sensory garden. New native shrubs and flowers to be planted and encouraged, and re-installing a bee bank for solitary wild bees. This work will coincide with extensive public awareness events and trails as well a new natural murals in sites around the town.
Edible Landscape Project, Westport (€6,000): to expand the Food Forest concept to other residential estates around Westport to enhance place-based food security and community resilience to the negative impacts of climate change. Work will also include edible workshops - planting apple or other fruit trees along with a range of beneficial companion plants to form systems for pollinating insects and help to fertilise the soil to create a self-sustaining, guild or food forest planting system with local community groups and residents.
Ballyhaunis Tidy Towns (€5,000): to carry out an invasive species assessment to inform a removal of non-native species alongside the river and replace with native trees and shrubs.
Inishturk Community Club CLG (€5,000): to develop a local Biodiversity Action Plan to help identify local species, invasive species, ecosystems, and natural habitats. Promote the responsible use of natural resources, ensuring that community development and environmental health are balanced. Furthermore, the plan will foster local involvement by raising awareness about environmental issues and endangered species through workshops, heritage days and engagement with the island's primary school students.
Coiste Cultúr Teanga agus Forbartha Thuar Mhic Éadaigh CFTR (€5,000): to classify local habitats, assess their condition and extent, map them, and define a set of suitable actions to enhance biodiversity in our community. This work will help inform local people, including farmers and other landowners, and provide practical options for improved management of green and blue spaces and natural habitats.
CALL Climate Action Louisburgh Locality (€5,000): to partner with an ecologist to undertake a baseline biodiversity survey using written, mapped and aerial photos; local knowledge; targeted fieldwork; outline management recommendations; identify suitable sites for biodiversity interpretation.