Horizons

All those drawn towards Scandinavian design should make their way to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland on Thursday. Jan R. Stavik, managing director of the Norwegian Design Council, will give a lecture there entitled "Norwegian Furniture Design - from Vikings to Milan" at 6 p.m. Stavik will also have information on individual designers and small and medium-sized companies producing designer furniture in Norway. The lecture is in conjunction with an exhibition of Norwegian furniture currently on show at the RIAI, 8 Merrion Square, Dublin 2. The exhibition, which is open weekdays, continues until March 26th. Tel:01-6761703.

The Irish Peatland Conservation Council has been in touch with Horizons to tell Irish Times readers about its recycling schemes. The council is interested in receiving postage stamps (including first-day covers and stamp collections), telephone call cards, foreign and old coins, postcards, old greeting cards, bus change tickets, vouchers and supermarket club points. Their band of volunteers then have the laborious task of sorting all the above and selling on what they can - stamps, coins and old postcards and call cards - to various dealers. They cash in the rest, and it all goes towards funds for the Save the Bogs campaign. Up to 82 per cent of bogs in Ireland have already been destroyed. The Irish Peatland Conservation Council aims to conserve and protect up to 4 per cent (50,000 hectares) of the different peatland types. Over the last 12 years, they have brought more than 27,000 hectares under protection. Contact them at bogs@ipcc.ie or tel: 01-8722384.

Perhaps the only way to get some young people to appreciate the value of trees - and leave the saplings standing rather than breaking off their fragile branches, as witnessed by this reporter in a Dublin suburb recently - is to get them involved in planting. This idea certainly seems to be inspiring the Terryland urban woodland park in Galway city. An open wet grassland area on the banks of the river, Terryland has already been a location for bulbathons and plantathons with widespread community involvement. Terryland Forest Park is just one of a series of urban woodland schemes, which the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources is grant-aiding. Others include Belleek woodland near Ballina, Co Mayo, Belvedere in Co Westmeath and Ballybeg in Waterford city.

The Ballyboughal Hedgerow Society, based in Ballyboughal (five miles northwest of Swords, Co Dublin) won a community grant of £1,500 last month from the Irish Heritage Council to establish a website. The site is now up and running (www.irishhedgerows.com) with events posted for the next three months. For instance, Eanna Ni Lamhna, well-known spokeswoman on environmental issues, will give a public talk on the importance of hedgerows for birdlife in Ballyboughal Hall, on Wednesday at 8 p.m. (admission £3). At the moment, hedges fall between two stools and are not categorised as either trees or woodland, according to the BHS.

The co-ordinators of the website are planning to include much more information on the legal standing of hedgerows (how they shouldn't be damaged or altered in any way between March 1st and August 30th) and countryside policy. Their aim is to provide such information so that anyone who sees wanton destruction of hedgerows can make valid complaints to their local county council.

Botanist Declan Doogue, a member of the Ballyboughal Hedgerow Society, leads many walks in the area to study the flora and fauna protected by thriving hedgerows. Check out the website and join in some activities if you live in the locality. Anyone interested in finding out more about the hedgerow action group, Hedge Network Ireland, can contact Ann Lynch, Ballyboughal Hedgerow Society, Ballyboughal, Co Dublin. Tel: 01-8433745.

Web World

www.irishanimals.com

This is a one-stop site for all Irish animal welfare resources. It contains contact information for all branches of the Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ISPCA), wildlife welfare and rescue groups, anti-vivisection interest groups. It also has reports on the use of animals in experiments, details of Irish quarantine laws, a lost-and-found section (where you can post details of any animals you know that have been lost or found) and locations for pet-friendly holidays in Ireland and Britain. A wealth of contacts. Surprisingly, there are very, very few images of animals on the site.