Horizons

A Heritage & Habitat roundup

LANDSCAPE PROTECTION

Finding ways to protect our mountains, lakes, rivers and wild coastal landscapes into the future will be a major theme of the Heritage Council’s Landscape conference from October 14th to 16th in the Tullamore Court Hotel, Tullamore, Co Offaly. International speakers such as Richard Foreman, professor of landscape ecology at Harvard University, and Maguelonne Dejeant-Pons, head of cultural heritage at the Council of Europe, will join others from France, Canada, Scotland and Ireland to highlight ways to keep our landscapes intact and relevant to people’s increasingly urbanised lifestyles. For more details, tel. 056-7770777 or see heritagecouncil.ie.

NATIONAL TREE DAY

Next Thursday is National Tree Day, when schoolchildren across the country are given opportunities to go on guided walks in local woodlands and forests. Coillte, the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Heritage Service of the Office of Public Works, local authorities and private landowners have planned walks in 120 locations throughout Ireland on Thursday. The Arbutus or strawberry tree (left) will be celebrated this year. One of our rarer native evergreen trees, it can be found in Killarney, Co Kerry; Glengarriff, Co Cork; and on the shores of Lough Gill in Co Sligo.

See treecouncil.ie for lists of free walks on Thursday. See also projectforest.ie for details of an educational project on trees for Transition Year students.

OPEN INVITATION

“Can architecture save the world?” is the title of an open debate on Thursday at 7pm in Liberty Hall Theatre, Dublin. Chaired by broadcaster and historian John Bowman, the free event will have a panel of speakers – architects, urban regeneration and sustainable development experts – answering questions from the audience. The debate kicks off this year’s Open House Dublin in which the public can gain free access to architect-designed private and public buildings next Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Open House will also run in Galway this year, with public and private buildings open to the public from October 16th to 18th.

For full details, contact the Irish Architecture Foundation on 01-6074050 or see architecturefoundation.ie/openhouse.

 Ecoweb

pureproject.ie

Protecting Uplands and Rural Environments is an environmental initiative which helps eliminate waste from the Dublin/Wicklow mountains. It encourages the public to report illegal dumping by calling the EPA lo-call phone line 1850-365121 and through the Pure Mile project, it also encourages local communities to look after a mile of country roadscape in their area.