Natura Communities, a new initiative from LIFE IP Wild Atlantic Nature and supported by National Parks and Wildlife Service, aims to connect local communities with Natura 2000 sites in their area. The vision is to build capacity in communities to enable the delivery of locally-led nature conservation and ecosystem restoration projects, where local communities have the knowledge and skills in all levels of conservation project management. By directly investing in communities, there is the potential to support long-term conservation; whereby experience and expertise is developed and retained by a competent and dedicated workforce, living and working in their local area. Building capacity to engage in this type of work has two broad benefits; it will deliver social benefits for people in these areas (e.g. through creating opportunities for local employment) whilst improving the ecological quality of habitats. A group (Dúlra) is already up and running in Connemara/South Mayo with 17 full-time employees and two other groups are well on the way to getting established in North Mayo and West Donegal. We also launched the Natura Communities website, which is a hub with background information on the importance of blanket bogs, case studies on the delivery of restoration/conservation projects and funding opportunites, which will hopefully encourage communities on a pathway towards protecting and conserving our precious blanket bogs. The launch of the website was coupled with the launch of the Nature Communities Seed Fund, a small grant to help communities mobilise complementary funding for blanket bog restoration projects. Follow Natura Communities on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram.
