This article is from page 34 of the 2008-01-29 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 34 JPG
FOLLOWING the Dublin launch of BurrenLIFE’s first ever Farming for Conservation international con- ference last week, the Carron-based organisation has teamed up with the National Parks and Wildlife Service to announce a series of illustrated rece
These will take place in the Coun- cil Chamber of the County Museum Building in Ennis for six Wednes- days, from February 6 to March 12.
The series will reflect on and cel- ebrate the hugely diverse range of natural and cultural heritage in the Burren region. It promises to be a rich and varied programme of talks.
The series kicks off with a talk entitled “Eating The Landscape – Farming The Burren’ by Ruairi O Conchuir.
The talk will highlight the upcom- ing conference and will also focus on the production of quality food from a quality environment.
The lecture on February 13 will be delivered by Barry O’Donoghue, park ranger with the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
O’Donoghue grew up watching hen harriers on the family farm in Tralee and this helped him attain a depth of knowledge of the factors regarding the conservation of these rare birds.
His talk is called ‘Rare, Beautiful and Preying – the Hen Harrier’.
Ian Doyle will take up the mantle on February 20 and give a talk en- titled “The Vanishing Monuments of the Burren’.
This will be concerned with, amongst other things, the huge den- sity of archaeological monuments in the region and the real threat posed to them by the onset of scrub.
Guest speaker on February 27 will be Eugenie Regan. She is one of two ecologists in the National Biodiver- sity Centre in Waterford.
Eugenie’s research is focused on wetland and limestone grassland ecology.
The penultimate talk in the series will focus on the rich geological di- versity of the Burren Region. The
talk is entitled “Rocks and Land- forms – The Geodiveristy of the Bur- ot
The speaker in this case is Mat- thew Parkes, assistant keeper of the National History Museum in Dub- lin with special responsibility for its geological collections.