Transition Town Kinsale’s latest project (2019-2021) is the development of a Community Biodiversity Plan. The group recently received a €10,000 grant from the Community Foundation for Ireland to create this for the area.

The urgency and need for this is the catastrophic decline of biodiversity worldwide, with one million species threatened with extinction  (UN IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, 2019). 

Transition Town Kinsale were delighted to engage Ecologist Jo Goodyear to carry out the work.

Ms. Goodyear is an ecologist specialising in botany and habitat survey and management with 20 years experience. After finishing her MSc in Environmental Management (University of Leicester), she worked in agro-ecology research at the Institute of Grassland and Environmental Research (UK) and University College Cork, and in ecological consultancy in the UK and Ireland. Currently an ecological adviser to Cork Nature Network, she regularly leads plant foraging walks to introduce people to the wonders of nature all around them and is also a qualified herbalist.

Our first step was to  host a public meeting to inform and engage with the community, which took place February 13th, in the Friary Centre, Kinsale.

There was a full-house and after TTK outlined some of the projects ongoing (Open Forum 13th Feb 2020 ) Jo Goodyear gave her presentation.  Kinsale Community Biodiveristy Action Plan – Jo Goodyear Presentation – 13th Feb 2020

Community Biodiversity action Plan Open Forum 13th February at the Friary Centre, Kinsale

L-R : Raffaella Valenti, Jo Goodyear, Michael O’Sullivan and Margaret Thuillier

This was an open forum and there was plenty of feedback from the attendees about the sites we are going to look at; ideas to consider among other issues.

As part of the funding application 5 sites around the area were identified. This Spring Ms. Goodyear will begin to classify these local habitats, catalogue biodiversity and define a suite of actions to enhance biodiversity in these areas. Working with other community groups, such as the Tidy Towns, Flower Club, etc. and the schools TTK will be organising Workshops over the year also.

All information will be collated and the data submitted to the National Biodiversity Data Centre by December 2020, with a formal Community Biodiversity Plan due for publication in March 2021. Unfortunalty this has been delayed with Covid but is pending (Autumn 2021).

See our facebook site which we will use to capture what we are seeing in our community and to help identify the less well-known flora and fauna.

See also list of things to spot in your garden during the current lockdown.   Kinsale BAP March wildlife spot

Thanks to Jean Hamilton for carrying out an New Year plant hunt and a number of bat walks – unfortunately due to restrictions these could not be public events but we hope to run similar events in the future.

Thanks to Éidín Griffen (rebelseed.ie) for her wonderful additions to our local phone boxes.

Éidín also organised  the recent open room so we could all visit and comment on the draft community Biodiversity Action Plan. Lots of ideas are in the pipeline.