All you need to know about Kilkenny's Biodiversity Week

Originally from Dublin, Lorcán Scott, now lives in Castlecomer and is the Wildlife Officer for The Heritage Council.

The Heritage Council, is based in Kilkenny and is a government agency, established to raise awareness of, conserve and support the three heritage pillars of built, natural and cultural (intangible) heritage, throughout Ireland and its territorial waters.

Wildlife through a len - Lorcán Scott at Castlecomer Discovery Park

As a child Lorcán loved nothing more than escaping city life and spending the day fishing and exploring outdoor life. That’s where his grá for wildlife started.

After his degree in Environmental Science, he began his career as a ranger in the Wicklow National Park. Since then, he has worked as a ranger in Kilkenny, the Heritage Officer in Carlow, District Conservation Office for the South East and National Peatlands Officer. With all this experience we are lucky to have Lorcán as our Wildlife Officer.

This was a post he took up in 2019, with his work primarily focused on natural heritage. Hence Lorcán is the perfect fit this week for a day in the life chat, just in time to tell me all about Kilkenny’s upcoming National Biodiversity Week…

Wildlife Sanctuary

Lorcán what does a Wildlife Officer do?

We look to protect and conserve Ireland’s native fauna and flora and the habitats that support them. 

This is best exemplified through the Traditional Farm Buildings Scheme and or the Community Heritage Grants Fund.

Applications for these programmes are assessed on their merits, but conditions attached may include other aspects of heritage, not central to the works envisaged. 

So, I look at these applications to make sure they adhere to best practice and see how I can give added value or the right advice that might change the outcome of their application.

Also in my role, I also manage two social inclusion projects - the Wildlife Sanctuary which runs several in field excursions to broaden refugees' experience and knowledge of Irish wild places and Coming to Your Natural Senses, a programme designed to practically enhance people with significant visual loss awareness and appreciation of wildlife through sound.

A range of classes are designed to teach participants about the world of various fauna through touch and sound, partners include BirdWatch Ireland, Bat Conservation Ireland and the Irish Whale & Dolphin Group.

It must be the dream job for you, i.e. giving back to nature.

The whole plan is to leave the wildlife better than we found it. It can be tricky at times, with the likes of Donald Trump, who doesn’t seem to have my point of view! So, I still have a long way to go in convincing a few people.

You used to be called a tree-hugger, but that’s all changed now that people can see how we are all damaging the environment.

It's also a very exciting time, for example when I started working in 1982 there was very little money and no votes in it for the environment and biodiversity. Tree-huggers was the name people used to call out to me as people had no idea at the time what we were trying to do.

It's very different now, the young of today are going to save us - they are clued in and fired up. Now the Governments are taking it seriously and putting more money into it. We are all trying to reverse the stated biodiversity crisis as we stare climate change down the throat. We all know now that we have responsibilities and things to do to help save our environment and hopefully together, we will get there.    

Explain to us what National Biodiversity Week is all about?

National Biodiversity Week is organised by the Irish Environmental Network (IEN), with funding from the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS). Events are run by IEN member groups, as well as by Heritage Officers and other local groups.

Simply put, National Biodiversity Week is all about connecting people with nature. It’s about communicating the importance of biodiversity and motivating people to play their part in protecting it. It runs from May 19 to 28, 2023.

This year we are encouraging people to join in with our 11th annual Biodiversity Photographer of the Year competition, a weekend Bioblitz and Scavenger Hunt, and events every day on all thing’s wildlife in Ireland! Events will be both in person and virtual, so everyone can take part.

What is this year’s theme of Biodiversity Week is all about.

The key phrase this year is ‘Build Back Biodiversity’, which came out of Governments meeting all around the world. We know we are in trouble; science is now proven even though we still have some climate deniers etc, which will never go away. The scientific world is at one and the facts are we are in a biodiversity and climate change crisis.

The time for building reports about if we are in trouble is over. Now it’s time for action and the action is building back our biodiversity, our resilience and bringing back habitats to a state where they can support the important species that knit everything together.

Internationally the big-ticket items are losing our Amazon rainforests, returning some islands that are coming under threat with rising sea levels.

In Ireland it’s about what Bord na Móna have done i.e., stopping commercial cutting of peat bogs. Our peatlands are the low hanging fruit, they are the easiest thing to get a quick and rapid response. If we stop cutting them, we stop putting the carbon that is in the ground up in the air, so it makes a significant difference.

We are getting so many benefits in building back nature, to allow it to look after us.

What are you doing on a local level for National Biodiversity week?

I’II be involved in the 24-Hour Bioblitz which is happening on May 26 – 27. It’s an open, free, and family friendly event. It’s as much about having fun as about raising awareness. People can just drop in and we will have a range of activities going on over the 24 hours.

It is a partnership with the Castle and we will kick off at 3pm on Friday. The Office of Public Works Gardener is going to take people around the grounds of the Castle to show them our important trees.

Albert Nolan who is a heritage and schools’ specialist will take families out to look for bugs and butterflies. The whole idea is that we spend the 24 hours trying to record as many species as we can.

We hear the dusk chorus from the birds that will be singing there in the evening. Our last event early on the Saturday morning will be the bat walk and MothsIreland’s moth trap. The grand final will be a beautiful dawn chorus where BirdWatch Ireland and BirdWatch Kilkenny are partnering for this.

For the rest of the day, there will be lots of walks with different specialists, looking at the species of plants that are grown around Kilkenny.

What can individuals do all year round to help protect our wildlife?

I’d also like to let people know if they want to help themselves, there are box kits in our county library services that they can take out at any time. The box kits contain ecological survey equipment, full of sweep nets, kick sample nets and magnifying glasses and bat detectors. If you are a member of the library, you can take them out for free. They can pass on their findings to the National Biodiversity Data Centre.

We need people to collect records of common species as well as the rare ones as it all adds to the collective knowledge. With knowledge the best information we have, allows us to give the best outcome and the more we can do to save ourselves.

Kilkenny County Council, for the first time, has just introduced a new Biodiversity Officer. 

Yes, this is a new programme of biodiversity officers and there’s one available in every local authority. They will be supported by the Heritage Council and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.  

Bernadette Moloney is the new Bio-Diversity Officer for Kilkenny. We are very excited to have all that knowledge base in local authorities.

For more information on events for National Biodiversity Week, please visit www.biodiversityweek.ie