This article is from page 70 of the 2006-03-14 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 70 JPG
AFTER more than a decade of neglect and inaction, Clare County Council and other agencies have moved to rejuvenate the Burren in ambitious proposals lodged with Fáilte Ireland.
The €1.4m plan is a bid to significantly boost the Burren’s tourism potential and halt the environmental damage to the area.
The move arises from the absence of any visitor management plan for the area.
The council points out that the three reports published on the proper management of the Burren since proposals for a visitor centre at Mullaghmore in 1991, contained worthy suggestions and recommendations, “but unfortunately until recently very few actions have followed these recommendations.”
The document states that in the absence of any visitor management strategy, environmental damage has occurred through car parking and camping on fragile species-rich limestone grasslands.
Several favoured landscape viewing-points and major tourism routes have become traffic congested. Visitors constructing “mini-dolmens” have destroyed limestone pavement. Weathered limestone has been taken away for garden products. Graffiti has appeared on ancient monuments. Rare and endangered flora has been picked.
“From an economic and social viewpoint, the tourism industry of the Burren presents an unbalanced picture, with the majority of tourism infrastructure found along the western and northern coastline and less emphasis in the central and eastern areas.
“This leads to an unbalanced distribution of visitors and a resulting imbalance in the distribution of local economic benefit,” the document states.
Through the plan, the council, along with Shannon Development, Burrenbeo and others “is seeking to put in place an overall integrated management structure for the development of the local tourism product and the conservation of the environment in the Burren.”
It is intended to advance and integrate several existing community, nature conservation, archaeological and tourism initiatives that are operating in the Burren and combine these efforts with infrastructural improvements to be undertaken by the council.
The bodies involved will address the issue of carrying capacity at “honey-pot” destinations and address access issues with walking routes and monuments.
Council Director for Planning, Bernadette Kinsella, confirmed that the application to Fáilte Ireland for funding has the backing of the National Parks and Wildlife Service, the Heritage Council, the National Monuments Service of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Burren Centre in Kilfenora; north Clare councillors and Oireachtas members, Burren tourism service providers, farmers, local village communities and others.
The project will take three years to implement.