There was much excitement this week when my forestry colleague Karen Woods –Pro Silva Ireland committee member and Coillte Operations Manager (Coillte is Ireland’s semi-state body that manages Ireland’s public forests) announced that there has been a landmark decision to manage the popular Dublin Mountain forests using Close-to-Nature continuous cover forestry methods. The conversation of new-to-Ireland continuous cover forestry began 20 years ago with Pro SIlva Ireland, and the support of the international Pro Silva federation of foresters from many countries. And now it’s being implemented in Ireland, with much national pride, that yes we can radically reimagine forestry for broader environmental, social values. Hurrah from Hollywood forest too!!
Coillte have unveiled an ambitious plan to makeover their Dublin Mountains forests through continuous cover forestry management. Pro Silva principles will be used to transition nine forests to more diverse woodlands with a focus on habitat preservation and recreation. CCF management techniques can be used for commercial timber production in balance with other forest ecosystem services, but in this case Coillte will use CCF techniques to transform former plantation forestry to more natural woodlands where the primary aim is to provide for recreation and biodiversity enhancement. Coillte Operations Manager Karen Woods (also a Pro Silva Ireland Committee member) clearly explains the move in an excellent new video released for the occasion. Pro Silva Ireland welcomes the announcement and the chance for CCF management to be showcased at scale in public forests.
This is the time for a Great Reset. Let’s use it to change the way we see ourselves and our place on Earth. The conservationistAldo Leopold once wrotethat “one of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen.” But if everyone has an ecological education, we will not live alone, and it will not be a world of wounds.
This is a special post for me. I’m reflecting on the first of what I expect to be many more contributions from ecoliterate creatives I am getting to know in my online ecoliteracy course. I now have the good fortune to meet such talented creatives from all art disciplines and from across the world, in my efforts to bring ecoliteracy to the arts. Their work has nourished me in these challenging times.
I’d like to share this new work below from Irish writer Fearghal Duffy who has a deep interest in Irish myth and who was ‘a student’ in my first 6-week ‘Haumea Ecoliteracy for Creatives and Art Educators’ pilot online course (I hesitate to call my cohort ‘students’ as they are remarkably talented).
This new work from Fearghal came about as I invited my first cohort of students to present a small work for our last online Zoom group…
