Donal Hickey: Top eco award for Tralee wetlands group
Wetlands Award 2024/2025 For Tralee Flag Top Bay Green
Untrimmed road margins and patches of land set aside for growing wild flowers, often in parks and schools, are evidence of changing attitudes to nature. And ‘Bee Friendly’ signs around the country also indicate a willingness by more people to do their bit for biodiversity.
Those of us who remember the constant, almost orchestral, drone of busy bees — once an essential element of summer — miss the buzz as these fascinating creatures collected pollen from flowers and transferred it to help plants fruit and reproduce... a vital role in food production.
The National Biodiversity Data Centre (NBDC) has reported a massive decline in half our bee species since 1980, possibly by 50%, with a third extinction-threatened.
Tralee, County Kerry, was a worthy location for a Wild Bee Festival, last year, including walks, talks and workshops for communities to learn about pollinators and how to help them. Several organisations around the town are working for pollinators.
📣@AnTaisce announce the winners of Ireland's Green Flag Pollinator Award🥳
— All-Ireland Pollinator Plan (@PollinatorPlan) November 8, 2024
🏆Overall winner @traleebaywetlan
🏆Community garden: Sneem Garden of the Senses
🏆Country Park: Ballycroy Visitor Centre @WildNephin
Well done winners & highly commended parks!➡️https://t.co/mAmn3PAANr pic.twitter.com/5vd0hzAx2Q
Its understandable therefore that the Tralee Bay Wetlands Eco and Activity Park has won the overall All-Ireland Pollinator Award, run by An Taisce and the NBDC.
The 22-acre park, alongside the road to the Dingle Peninsula, has a 20metre viewing tower, nature walks, pedal boats, a nature reserve and ecology section.
Students from Munster Technological University, Tralee, who were engaged to survey attitudes to biodiversity locally, found that while most people had heard of biodiversity, there was a lack of understanding about it.
Certain pollinator-friendly management methods, such as letting grass grow longer to help native wildflowers, were often unpopular. But when it was explained to people that this helps pollinators, they became more supportive.
“Simple things like letting dandelions bloom, mowing every four to six weeks instead of every fortnight, or mixing pollinator-friendly plants into summer bedding can make all the difference," said Kate Chandler, NBDC pollination officer.
Parks are hugely important for biodiversity and getting people to connect with nature, from creating naturally-restored meadows, to protecting native trees and hedgerows and to eliminating harmful pesticides.
Other winners of pollinator awards are:
- Ballycroy Visitor Centre
- Wild Nephin National Park, County Mayo
- Garden of the Senses, Sneem, County Kerry
Finally, after hearing about the endangered large carder bee at the 2023 Wild Bee Festival in Tralee, Grace Clinton, of the Changing Tides group, in nearby Fenit, discovered it in her locality.
Working from an undeveloped, overgrown area on their estate, Changing Tides restored a native wildflower meadow. By adopting a patient approach and reducing mowing, plants such as orchids and cuckooflower have since appeared, benefitting pollinators like the large carder.
This previously unused area has become a wildflower-rich haven for many pollinators, full of their food plants.