The National Biodiversity Data Centre is hosting a month-long (virtual) Festival of Farmland Biodiversity for May 2022. The purpose of the Festival is to encourage a more positive engagement around the topic of biodiversity and farmland, and to highlight some of the ways that farmers can work to support biodiversity.
We want to engage with farmers to find out what actions they are taking to help protect our biodiversity.
Is there a hedge that you cut on a 3-year rotation to provide food for the birds and the bees? Please let us know. Every farmer that engages with the festival, will be automatically entered into a competition for a complete farm survey conducted by the staff of the biodiversity data Centre. The result of the survey will be a complete inventory of the species of your farm (amphibians, bees, birds, butterflies, dragonflies, grasshoppers, hoverflies, ladybirds, moths, plants and shieldbugs – if you have them, we will identify them). If a farmer can’t directly engage with the festival a friend or family member can enter for them.
Biodiversity and how farmland is managed are closely linked. Recent years have seen a reduction in the biodiversity value of farmland, and much of the variety and diversity which was once such a characteristic feature of the Irish countryside has been lost. Farmers and their families can be a positive driver of change by ensuring that biodiversity features of value on their land are retained. These retained features could then be the basis upon which biodiversity enhancement measures could be delivered. Ensuring there is diversity in the Irish landscape is one important contribution that the farming community can make and are making to building resilience to address the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Many farmers are already taking action to help biodiversity
The possibilities for transformative change where farmers across the island of Ireland take small and large actions on their farm to help biodiversity are enormous. We are seeking the help of the farming community to help deliver this transformative change by taking actions for biodiversity. As a first step in this process, we want to celebrate biodiversity on farmland, record and survey biodiversity and encourage more farmers to take positive actions for biodiversity. Many farmers are already taking action to help biodiversity, so we want to profile some of these activities. We are encouraging farmers to share with us their experiences and knowledge, to highlight the benefits of these kinds of actions. Our hope for this year’s Festival is that it will provide a vehicle for more positive engagement and learning around farmland biodiversity and result in a positive narrative around farmers, farmland, and biodiversity. We are delighted that to date 26 different organisations have agreed to support this festival.
The National Biodiversity Data Centre provides many supports to encourage people to get more involved in biodiversity recording and surveys. Already many farmers are involved in these schemes, but we would like to grow the network. The Data Centre works to make biodiversity data and information more freely available to help us better understand and assist in the protection of Ireland’s biodiversity. Ireland has around 31,500 species living in over 117 habitats. So please take photos or videos of any species, biodiversity friendly features or biodiversity actions that you have taken on your farm and share this through social media using #FarmlandBiodiversity or, send by email to farmland@biodiversityireland.ie.
Further details of the Festival of Farmland Biodiversity and the list of events can be found at:
https://biodiversityireland.ie/farmlandbiodiversity/.
Dr Liam Lysaght, Centre Director
Dr Saorla Kavanagh, Protecting Farmland Pollinators Project Manager
