merrion street

Thursday 22 May 2014: Mr. Jimmy Deenihan, T.D., Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has welcomed the events of this year’s National Biodiversity Week (17 – 25 May 2014) as communities worldwide celebrate International Day of Biological Diversity which takes place today.

Ireland celebrates its 8th National Biodiversity Week as part of Ireland’s contribution to a global celebration to increase awareness of the importance of biodiversity.

National Biodiversity Week is being organised between the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, the Irish Environmental Network and the National Biodiversity Data Centre. The CBD theme for this year’s biodiversity day is “Island Biodiversity”. As an island we should ensure that we give appropriate attention to this theme and in that regard a number of specific events have been organised. The Minister outlined his appreciation to all those involved in the organising of events across the country.

“Our biodiversity and specifically ‘Island Biodiversity’ is of great importance to each of us and the events of biodiversity week will assist in raising awareness of the positive role of biodiversity in our society” said the Minister.

The Minister went on to encourage individuals, families and communities to take the opportunity to take part in the celebration of our biodiversity by participating in the various events and activities.

The Minister outlined “The importance of biodiversity and the threats facing it is not just a distant global matter; we interact with biodiversity every day in our local and national communities, but often forget the essential role it plays in our lives. Biodiversity week provides a great opportunity to reconnect with and celebrate our national and local biodiversity”.

Events are taking place in locations across the countries including our National Parks. Following on from the success of previous years a National BioBlitz Event has been organised by National Biodiversity Data Centre in each of the four provinces.

Other events such as the ‘Beach walks’ by the Irish Seal Sanctuary which will be featured on the ‘RTE News Now programme’, the ‘Native Species Weekend at Dublin Zoo’ and ‘an An Taisce/Liffey Valley Park Alliance biodiversity walk in St Catherine's Park Fingal’. Many more events nationwide will be scheduled shortly. For details of events taking place in your area, please visit the Notice Nature website, www.noticenature.ie, which is the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht public awareness website on biodiversity.