With SYLVIA THOMPSON
Green Living Fair in Co Down
WHAT’S STOPPING us building green? The spiritual challenge of climate change and the future of food. Just a few topics up for debate at the Green Living Fair at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust in Castle Espie, Comber, Co Down, next weekend. The annual fair will also host outdoor workshops and demonstrations, and stands on conservation, sustainable transport, organic food, renewable energies and other aspects of green living.
Open 10.30am to 6pm, Saturday and Sunday. Email info.castleespie@wwt.org.uk; Tel: 048 91874146. On Saturday, a group cycle to Castle Espie leaves Belfast at 10am. Free entry to those who participate. Contact Sustrans on 048 90517055 for more details.
National Trusts conference
More than 300 delegates representing heritage trusts from all over the world will attend a conference about conservation in a changing climate in Dublin Castle from September 13th to 17th. The International Conference of National Trusts, hosted by An Taisce, will hear how communities in Uganda, Ethiopia and Taiwan are developing tourism around local heritage and the principles of sustainability. Conference organisers will ask world leaders to place our heritage at the heart of climate change talks in Copenhagen this year. Speakers include president of Realising Rights Mary Robinson (right) and directors of National Trusts in the USA and UK. Limited number of observer places available by emailing icnt13@antaisce.org. Tel: 01 4541786; internationaltrusts.org.
Sustainable forestry
FORESTERS of the future will be called upon to act as ecosystem managers, according to a leading Irish expert on forestry, Fergal Mulloy. Some of the world’s leading forest scientists gathered in Dublin Castle last week to discuss sustainable forestry and climate change at a conference organised by the European Forest Institute. Prof Neils Elers Kock from the Danish Centre for Forest, Landsacpe and Planning suggested forests will become “green fitness centres”. How to do this without urbanising the natural environment and instead maintaining the contrast between the forest and the urban environment is a concern . The average forest cover in Europe is about 40 per cent of land. In Ireland, it is about 10 per cent with a national target of 17 per cent. See efi.int for notes.
Ecoweb
dublinmountains.ie
CHECK OUT this site as it develops to include wonderful photos of the Dublin mountains, information on orienteering, walking, horse riding and running events, and the fantastic new Dublin Mountaineer bus which brings walkers from the Sandyford Luas stop and Marlay Park up into the mountains.
The pilot scheme runs at weekends until the end of September.