 Sustainable Enniscorthy was delighted to have won 1st place in the Wexford County Council #KeepWexfordBeautiful Environmental Awards tonight in the category “Best Community Project that Tackles & Reduces the Impact of Climate Change”. Thank you to Wexford County Council for the recognition, the beautiful plaque and the much-appreciated prize. Our winnings also included generous vouchers from Kilcannon Garden Centre & Restaurant that will be put to good use in upcoming biodiversity & rain garden projects.
Congratulations also to other Enniscorthy groups who won various categories tonight including Enniscorthy Tidy Towns, Coláiste Bríde Enniscorthy, Enniscorthy Community Allotments & Bridgemeadow Residents Associations. Well done all. A successful night for Enniscorthy! Sustainable Enniscorthy has been following The Green Plan on ChangeX a project involving simple activities that have a positive impact on our environment funded by The Green Plan, ChangeX and Accenture. Sustainable Enniscorthy, in collaboration with Enniscorthy Tidy Towns and GoPaddle, took to the water on Saturday 23rd Sept with some extra volunteers to
 Sustainable Local Community Development – Slaney News
It was only after the UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro concluded in June 1992 that the concept of sustainable development became an attainable goal for all the people of the world whether local, national or regional and supported by 179 countries and multiple non-governmental organisations did the concept filter through to communities worldwide. The major result of the conference was Agenda 21, a new program to achieve overall sustainable development in the 21st century. Sustainable Enniscorthy hosted its second Energy Saving Expo on Wednesday evening on 25 January in the Riverside Hotel. The free event gave people the chance to talk to local suppliers of energy-saving products and services to learn how to save energy and money in their home, transport, business and farm. The event was well attended, the atmosphere relaxed and the feedback positive.
This month we look at sustainability and parenting and explore some options that can reduce our environmental impact without compromising on the development of our children. As every parent knows, during the baby phase nappies fill our general waste bin and so reusable nappy options are worth exploring to reduce this source of waste. You can borrow a kit of reusable nappies from the Wexford Town or Enniscorthy Cloth Nappy Library for a trial and see if they suit your situation. Single-use wipes are another big source of waste, with about 68 billion individual wet wipes being consumed in the EU-28 in 2017. Many of these single-use wipes contain plastics and are notoriously difficult to break down, clogging sewage systems and polluting marine environments. Why not consider reusable options like repurposing cotton towels/facecloths to use instead – they are soft, clean really well and can be popped into the wash or a wet bag when out and about. If you prefer you can purchase reusable cloths and kits from Cheeky Wipes or check out local online business The Nappy Market.
At beginning of April the Final Report of the Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was officially launched, following agreement across on a potentially transformative suite of 159 recommendations. This marks a significant milestone along the journey to protect Ireland’s natural heritage and is a timely opportunity to consider what exactly is Biodiversity? And why is it so important to us?
Biodiversity is shorthand for biological diversity and refers to all life on Earth. The living world is a fascinating and varied place, encompassing a dizzying assortment of plants, animals, insects, birds and marine life, each carving a niche for themselves. At beginning of April the Final Report of the Citizen’s Assembly on Biodiversity Loss was officially launched, following agreement across on a potentially transformative suite of 159 recommendations. This marks a significant milestone along the journey to protect Ireland’s natural heritage and is a timely opportunity to consider what exactly is Biodiversity? And why is it so important to us?
Biodiversity is shorthand for biological diversity and refers to all life on Earth. The living world is a fascinating and varied place, encompassing a dizzying assortment of plants, animals, insects, birds and marine life, each carving a niche for themselves. We are proud of the greenery of Ireland’s world-renowned landscapes, which attract tourists from near and far and are important to our natural heritage. However, as the Citizen’s Assembly Report highlights, this reassuring greenery also masks the fact we are increasingly squandering the natural wealth we inherited, a situation underlined by the Government’s declaration of dual Climate and Biodiversity Crisis in 2019. If we look a little closer at what biodiversity contributes to our daily lives, we see why this is a crisis worth understanding and acting on. The benefits of biodiversity are both direct, like food, timber and other raw materials, and indirect, like pollination, regulating water and air quality, as well climate, and we can’t forget all the health and well-being effects from time spent surrounded by nature too. Areas that are particularly rich in biodiversity, for example bogs and wetlands, provide crucial ecosystem services, as well being wonderful places to visit. These ecosystem services (watch this video by EU Environment for a great introduction) are so important that human life would not be possible without them. We know our biodiversity is struggling based on reports from multiple agencies, some of which are focused on individual aspects of biodiversity like pollinators and birds, and others which look at broader trends like the EPA’s State of the Environment Report and the NPWS Article 17 Reports. The number of insects and birds are key indicators to biodiversity and startling statistics such as a 98% decline in the number of curlews in just 30 years illustrate how we are trending in the wrong the direction. We can also see signs of the decline in our daily lives, do you remember when the front of your car used to be covered in insects? We ask a lot of nature yet human activities undertaken without regard for nature are the underlying cause for biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. These activities include changes in the use of land and sea, direct exploitation of species, pollution, and human-induced climate change. There are many useful resources out there to help us on our journey to reversing biodiversity loss but the first step is take a moment to listen to nature, wherever you find it, and make space for it in your life and in your decision-making. This video on the National Biodiversity Data Centre’s Maps can introduce you to some of the fascinating biodiversity right on your doorstep! Word Count: 501 Photo Credit: Marton Zsoldos Resources to get started: https://citizensassembly.ie/citizens-assembly-on-biodiversity-loss/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH-KHpLEIeY https://biodiversityireland.ie/ https://biodiversityireland.ie/top10/10-ways-to-help-biodiversity/ https://iwt.ie/ https://bsbi.org/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2023/02/BSBI-Plant-Atlas-2020-summary-report-Ireland-WEB.pdf https://www.ibcp.ie/ https://www.naturalcapitalireland.com/resources https://environment.ec.europa.eu/strategy/biodiversity-strategy-2030_en https://www.cbd.int/ https://www.unep.org/un-biodiversity-conference-cop-15 Links within article: https://citizensassembly.ie/wp-content/uploads/Report-on-Biodiversity-Loss_mid-res.pdf https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/climate-crisis/2022/11/17/biodiversity-and-climate-crises-must-be-addressed-in-tandem/#:~:text=On%20May%209th%2C%202019%2C%20D%C3%A1il,inside%20and%20outside%20the%20chamber. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6luBEJfi3s https://pollinators.ie/resources/ https://birdwatchireland.ie/publications/birds-of-conservation-concern-in-ireland-bocci-2020-2026/ https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/assessment/irelands-environment/state-of-environment-report-/ https://www.npws.ie/publications/article-17-reports https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=106pEX3vi7M  Stop Food Waste Reducing your food waste helps the environment and saves money too. Stop Food Waste is the national campaign to give you information and tips on how to make the most of your food and avoid food waste. www.stopfoodwaste.ie. Will you take the Stop Food Waste 7-Day Challenge? 1 March was National Stop Food Waste Day and we are invited to record our food waste for one week to identify what types of food we waste most. To record the food that goes into your food bin, you could:
The average Irish household can save around €700 a year by avoiding food waste. In the most recent national food waste attitudes survey commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency, three food types were identified as those wasted most often in Ireland:
Bread - Freeze it and Eat It!
Find Stop Food Waste on: ****************************************************************** Sustainable Enniscorthy is carrying out a community energy survey linked to the development of an Energy Master Plan for Enniscorthy. We’d appreciate you taking the time to complete it! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfYhR18DpPgP6jP39MoFtZ8i_evCB11IiJm4gNrBVBWV5KaKQ/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0 |
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