The Irish Wildlife Trust (IWT) will hold a special event titled ‘Rewilding for People and Nature’ this coming weekend on Saturday (March 25) at the Corlea Trackway Centre in Co. Longford.
The event will involve a discussion on rewilding and the potential this has for addressing the climate and biodiversity emergency.
The IWT said it has chosen the Corlea Trackway Centre as it is an important hub for celebrating the cultural importance of Ireland’s peatland heritage.
It is also within the area of the Mid Shannon Wilderness Park which is a landscape-scale nature restoration project originally envisaged by local people as an after use for the bogs once turf-cutting ended.
Rewilding
The event aims to promote the original vision of the Mid Shannon Wilderness Park for the area of the worked-out bogs and Lough Ree which could be one of the greatest landscape restoration projects in Europe.
It would be the largest area of land dedicated to nature recovery in Ireland with immense amenity value for local people, as well as provide material benefits in addressing the biodiversity and climate crises, according to the IWT.
The event on Saturday will include talks from IWT campaign officer Pádraic Fogarty on the benefits of rewilding, Sue Moles, local ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) on the existing and potential wildlife of the area, and Alan McDonnell of Trees for Life and the Affric Highlands rewilding project in Scotland.
The IWT believes that rewilding is among the quickest, cheapest and most effective approaches to both the climate and biodiversity crises and should be embraced on a landscape scale.
The trust said it wants to make sure that rewilding works for people as well as nature, and is looking forward to hearing from the community in Co. Longford on Saturday.