KerryBiodiversity Week: celebratingour natureintheKingdom
UN International Day for Biological Diversity is this Friday, May 22. Locally, Kerry Biodiversity Week 2020 was to be celebrated this week from May 16 to 25, with many public events around the county. Unfortunately they cannot be held this year, due to current restrictions.
However, spending time in nature has been a significant part of people’s daily lives in the past few weeks. We have been spending more time in our gardens and with the 2-to-5km walks, we have been getting to know and appreciate the nature that is on our doorsteps and close to home, which can only be a good thing. We will be posting daily next week to:
Highlight resources that help to identify wild plants, trees and creatures that you may find, including bumble bees, butterflies, moths and spiders; Share information about how to bring more nature into your gardens and green space; and highlight organisations in Kerry that are working to promote and teach about biodiversity
Kerry Library will be posting daily story telling with books about nature for children too. Kerry Biodiversity Week 2020 is supported by Kerry County Council, Kerry Library and many organisations that get involved every year.
If you want to share some photos or information about biodiversity in your local area or your garden, please tag #KerryBiodiversityWeek2020 and we can share. You will find information at these addresses:
Kerry Library: http://www. kerrylibrary.ie or https://www. facebook.com/KerryLibrary/
Kerry Biodiversity Week 2020: https://www.facebook.com/kerrybiodiversityweek2020/
Protect and defend nature: Biodiversity is another word for nature and comes from two words – Biological Diversity. It is the variety of all life and the interconnections between them.
It is the web of life and all living things depend on it, which includes us. It works on at least three levels: genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity.
Biodiversity gives us clean air to breathe, soil to grow food and trees in, water to survive and beauty that lifts our spirits and helps hugely with our wellbeing.
Nature is considered to be sacred in many traditions and in Irish Brehon Laws, trees and animals were respected and valued in ways that we would do well to bring back into current laws.
It is more important than ever that we protect and defend the natural world:
One of our biggest challenges is the continued eradication of habitats.
These natural ecosystems are our greatest buffer in terms of extreme climate change. This is not just happening in rainforests in the Amazon or Asia for cheap food and palm oil. This is happening right here in Ireland and in Kerry.
It is our bogs and wetlands that we are draining to increase unsustainable cow herds; hedges and woodlands that we are decimating with removal and incorrect cutting; monoculture grass fields and plantation forestry; water systems that we are polluting; using herbicides which affect pollinators and other wildlife and eventually end up back in our drinking water.
Bring Nature & Food Education back into schools as a mandatory subject:
We can make changes in our daily lives and in our gardens.
But other radical actions we need to take are: Make Nature and Food Education a mandatory subject for trainee teachers and for both primary and secondary schools; Stop buying cheap products and disposing of them; Consider not flying and reduce our travel by cars (the current restrictions show that this is possible, though the circumstances are not ideal!); Contact our local politicians and tell them that this matters to us – it is the only way that we can get policies changed or enforced; Learn about the Global Goals, which are a valuable set of Sustainable Development Goals, and protection of biodiversity is connected to all 17 of them and reflects how we act locally can have a global affect.