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What Biodiversity Funding is Available for your Projects?

Participants of Biodiversity Training Course Walking through a wood with wildflowers

Biodiversity Funding opportunities to help you kickstart your environmental dreams

We all want to help the environment in one way or another. But after hearing the constant negative news about the trajectory of the natural world, it’s easy to feel disheartened. But there are also many positive changes happening all the time for the environment, which often get side-lined by the doom and gloom of mainstream media. It’s important not to get overwhelmed and focus on what you can do, which is actually quite a lot. 

And luckily, you’re not alone. There are always people ready to help, and even more that will be ready with a little encouragement. At the end of the day, our species are very social creatures that have evolved to work together. Instinctively, we love to get together for a common goal. Never underestimate the impact that one small group of individuals can have on their community.

 

Participants of Biodiversity Training Course Walking through a wood with wildflowers

 

Community-based initiatives and widely praised for being one of the most critical components of the environmental movement. The volunteer movement in Ireland is unmatched.  It is the local activism that plays one of the biggest roles in progressing societal norms towards a more sustainable future. That is why the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight the need for governments and agencies to support community initiatives.

With all that in mind we decided to signpost a few funding opportunities  you can take advantage of to increase the quality of life for your community and the natural world around it.

LEADER Funding:

Since its launch in 1991, LEADER programme has helped rural communities across the European Union to actively engage and to direct the local development of their area, through community-led local development. One of the objectives under it’s remit is to provide funding for local projects that improve biodiversity.

Community Water Development Fund:

Other Biodiversity Funding Opportunities:

If you are aware of any other funding that we have missed feel free to let us know.

Additional Guidance

The Wheel:

  • Great resource for training and guidance https://www.wheel.ie/
  • Must become a member to gain access. Membership:
  • Free for organizations that take in less than 25,000
  • 25 for unwaged individual, 75 for waged
  • The Wheel has a huge database for funding grants, but it costs to access it:
  •  100 for members, 200 for non-members
  • Plus more training through weact.ie – FREE
  • Helpful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTtAQ8IpDNQ

We have witnessed the passion and power of local community groups at our various training courses and networking events. It does require some work and a bit of determination but the funding is there to help those who are willing to tackle local biodiversity issues. The very best of luck to anyone who applies and do let us know how you get on.

 

Heading West to Reflect on our Success.

west, ireland, biodiversity

Heading West to Reflect on our Success.

My colleagues Michelle, Amanda and I all took some time out to head West over the past few weeks to celebrate the huge work of our clients Forum Connemara and Galway Rural Development. Their vision together with Lawpro was to create ambitious programmes to share skills and knowledge from our ecology team and develop action plans to animate small changes across the breath of beautiful regions. Over 300 people in total, with more than 100 in person and in online sessions, combined with high quality action plans. These are the visible outcomes to be brought forward for water quality and biodiversity improvements.

biodiversity, water veri software, biodiversity

On the 4 hour drive last week , with my hands free , the calls from work were coming thick and fast but as we crossed the county boarders it was apparent that the beauty and biodiversity around us were silently encouraging us to slow down.

Ambition is defined as ” A strong desire to do or achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work.”

I couldn’t help but ponder all the hard work that we embarked on with our clients. It was so apparent in the wonderful events we shared together with the participants and clients.

 

east galway, biodiversity Forum connemara, biodiversity

As CEO of the company , I am so proud that at Veri Connect we empower companies and communities to undertake these type of ambitious programmes, reassured that Veri Connect will manage the complexities. Our clients take a leap by showing the ambition, we then streamline the process, augment communications via the digital dashboard and link the data to the projects for compliance and success. Allowing our clients to enjoy the journey by giving them the tools for successful completion.

Sustainability is at the core of everything we do, but sometimes we need to realise that we can’t always sustain constant hard work . The demands of business, family and emotional life, often mean that we have to slow  down a little and enjoy smelling the roses of success. Like we did at the Wild Goat Café last week!

The time in the west of Ireland showed me the value in connecting communities, networking and peer learning. Also it made me realise that when the opportunity came up, extending my stay in this beautiful part of the country for an additional 24 hours of slow down allowed me to recharge and be ready to head off again. It gave me time to reflect and focus, ready to enable effective programme delivery and compliance in a sustainable way through digitisation once again.

                                                  west, ireland, biodiversity

 

Guest Post – Cuan Beo Environmental CLG

Cuan Beo Environmental tells us how oysters can teach us how our land based activities effect the marine environment

Untold wonders of the watery world, ecological processes of incredibly intricate design,  systematic environmental catastrophes unfolding over time and genius nature based  solutions to our impending doom owing to an environmental disaster of our own making –  all can be revealed to you by an oyster – but first you have to learn how to listen to them!

Communication with an oyster is certainly difficult. He is a faceless, noiseless, voiceless  molluscan bivalve that generally lives under a couple of million of gallons of water, so to plainly ask him ‘Mr Oyster, are there any land based water pollution pressures directly  affecting your habitat?’ will most likely leave you without a satisfactory response and  understandably frustrated. But maybe the oyster is answering us and we just have to  change how we listen!

Cuan Beo Environmental Clg

If we observe the oyster over time, examine how he is interacting with his environment,  examine what he is eating, examine how he is reproducing and consider the water he is  living in and how this water is delivered to his environment, we’ll begin to uncover  tangible connections between land land and sea, and understand through the changes  observed in the oyster’s behaviour how our land based water management activities  directly impact the marine ecosystem and marine biodiversity. 

There is significant pressure placed on our coastal environment owing to the actions we  take on land. Storm water overflows, agricultural run off, urban waste water, land drainage  ,surface water overflows or sewage treatment all present a significant environmental  challenge to marine life when they are discharged either directly or via a fresh water  inputs (river, stream, groundwater) into the marine environment. These discharges can  result in huge mortalities in marine life or substantial habitat lost owing to a number of  detrimental habitat alterations such as increased sedimentation, increased eutrophication,  direct pollution via harmful substances or substantial reductions in salinity concentrations  and temperature ranges owning to increased fresh water land drainage. 

There is sometimes a misconceived belief that the ocean is so vast that it can withstand  these pressures and that the majority of land based pollutants are diluted into the open  Atlantic – the opposite is in fact the reality! There are ‘invisible’ boundaries in the ocean,  created by a number of different factors including tides, areas where fresh and salt water  meet, currents, areas of different depth or temperature, and many others, that effectively  retain water in a the immediate coastal environment. This means that land based  discharges do remain in the immediate coastal coastal environment for a significant  period of time and present a risk to marine life or result in habitat loss for a number of  marine species.  

Studying marine life like the oyster, trying to understand his decline in population, his  increased mortalities or poor reproduction and settlement allows us to quantify the impact  of these land based water pollution activities and understand how our actions can directly impact multiple ecosystems – unfortunately, studying oysters usually reveals how we are  acting to their detriment! 

However, it is not all doom – luckily the oyster is an optimist, and just as often as he tells  us we have done something wrong he rewards us when we do something right! When we  improve a fresh water input into the marine environment this almost immediately translate  to an improvement in oyster survival and marine biodiversity in general. If we reduce  nutrient enrichment by planting buffer zones on land this results in healthier algae  populations for oysters to graze on, if we reduce sedimentation by installing siltation traps  on rivers and streams and allowing them to flood and meander naturally this creates more  ‘clean’ habitats for new oysters to settle on, and if we retain more water on land through  wetlands, surface water capture and rain water capture this eliminates large drops in  marine salinity concentrations owing to substantial fresh water discharges.

The water biodiversity training provided by Veri Connect to community groups is invaluable in  demonstrating how we can improve our land based water management and achieve large  scale environmental restoration through actions as simple as installing rain water  harvesters, digging a pond or leaving some land for floods. The right action in the right  place can go a long way – and we don’t need to prove it, the oysters will do that! 

Many thanks to Alec Reid who is the Oyster Reef Restoration Officer at Cuan Beo Evironmental Clg, Galway Bay for this guest post. We were privileged to hear Alec speak at a Networking Event for Galway Rural Development, his passion and knowledge in his field of expertise had everyone in the room captivated.