From bogs to dunes: charting a course for restoration in Ireland

Catherine Farrell

• 📅Tuesday, February 20, 2024
• 🕥10:30 – 12:30
• 🏟Newtownpark Pastoral Centre (map)

Restoration is a key tool to help our natural systems recover. In this presentation, Catherine will outline her own experiences of peatland conservation and restoration since the mid 1990s, illustrating how peatlands have come to centre stage in the discussions on climate change. Dune systems are also important and yet there is no consistent planning evident around coastal sites and how we use or protect them. Catherine will outline the work of LIFE on Machair, an EU funded project to help raise awareness about machair and dune systems and support their restoration. She will highlight lessons to be learned for future restoration plans developed under the pending Nature Restoration Law.

Catherine Farrel graduated from University College Dublin with a BSc in Environmental Biology. Following her keen interest in restoration ecology, her PhD research focused on vegetation ecology and practical measures to restore industrial cutaway Atlantic blanket bog in the west of Ireland. Since then she has worked across a number of sites and developed approaches to coastal restoration. She is a founding member of Natural Capital Ireland and an active member of a number of community led projects and restoration initiatives.