Members of Wexford Tidy Towns attended a special ceremony for the first national Greening Communities Awards on Thursday 16th April at the Department of Environment, Community & Local Government in their Custom House Offices, Dublin. Here we were delighted to be presented Wexford’s first ‘Greening Community Flag’ Award. Wexford, Coolagown and Killorglin were the three communities awarded the flag on the day.

Denis Collins and Phil Murphy receiving the Greening Community Flag Award

“The Greening Communities Program provides a framework to recognise and celebrate a community that is striving towards sustainable living. A Greening Community Flag is awarded to a robust community that works with the program to identify needs and vulnerabilities in their locality and takes action, in accordance with the program, to make the community more sustainable.” (Greening Communities) Learn more about the awards here.

Some of the Biodiversity Projects undertaken in Wexford that were considered in awarding the Flag were:

• 1798 Park
• Redmond Park including the Composting & Ant Hotel
• The Swift Project
• Let’s Bee Friendly Campaign
• Dealing with Invasive Species like Japanese Knotweed
• Wexford in Bloom flowering around the town
• Other Wexford Campaigns

This award along with being presented Bronze in 2014 Tidy Towns Awards as well as coming 5th in the Irish Businesses Against Litter (IBAL) 2014 Awards sees Wexford Tidy Towns continue to go from strength to strength. However with more volunteers we can achieve even better results so please come along and join us at one of our Action Days soon. We would love to see you there.

Blue Info Days takes place in Wexford on Saturday 25th & Sunday 26th April 2015 with the International marine scientist group ‘Citclops’.

Blue Info days encourage ocean literacy and wise use of marine and coastal resources. That means understanding how the sea ticks, passing on and adapting old sustainable coastal and marine resource practices, learning new methods to measure, monitor and report on the state of the sea as powerful citizen science tools.

The first ‘Blue Info Days’ weekend in Ireland will take place on 25th and 26th April 2015 in county Wexford and consist of a mix of short talks, demonstrations and hands on trials, lots of fieldwork and fun water events. It is aimed at the general public including families and students who want to enjoy the sea and care for it, as well as those professionally engaged in the sea, monitoring and harvesting marine and coastal resources.

Costs: A 10 euro nonrefundable registration fee applies to fieldtrip bookings and 20 euro towards the Saturday party incl light meal. For those registering by April 21st the fieldtrip will include picnic or light local lunch. Registering on the day is possible if space allows but will not include lunch.

Register on www.coastwatch.org or www.Citclops.eu or send booking form and registration fee for fieldtrip by April 21st to: Karin Dubsky, Coastwatch, Civil and Env. Eng. TCD, Dublin 2. Ireland. Download more details and the timetable for the weekend here or here

The Clean Coasts Roadshow will be visiting Wexford on Saturday 21st March at the Presentation Center Enniscorthy at 1.30pm. It aims to bring together all those with an interest in protecting their local beaches, seas and marine life. There will also be speakers from local groups too including Wexford Maritime Festival, Wexford Sub Aqua Club, Duncannon Hooked Kitesurfing and many more.

There will be a weekend of events about the sea (scientific, cultural, social, economic) hosted in Wexford town and around its estuaries, lagoons and coast on the 25th and 26th April, 2015. It is being organised by Coastwatch, Trinity College, Dublin and Wexford County Council.

They are looking for volunteers to help organise the event and host field trips. If you would like to volunteer to help with Blue Info Days, please contact Karin Dubsky at kdubsky@coastwatch.org or 086 8111684 by 23rd March, 2015.

For further information, see www.citclops.eu, www.coastwatch.org or contact Karin Dubsky at kdubsky@coastwatch.org or 086 8111684

Wexford Naturalists’ Field Club January Lecture may be of interest to some of our members. The first lecture of the year will be held on Friday 9th January 2015 8pm at The Pumphouse, Wexford Wildfowl Reserve. Non-members are welcome and admission is €5 including light refreshments. The topic will be:

Wildlife Conservation and the Community – From Barntown to Ballydesmond by Dr. Fran Igoe, Project Co-ordinator IRD Duhallow LIFE+ Project

The presentation will cover the following:

• Nature conservation options
• The importance of nature conservation
• A few recent examples of wildlife loss in Co Wexford
• A rural model for wildlife conservation – IRD Duhallow* LIFE project
• Developing the concept further and a new LIFE project that combines actions for the protection of birds of prey, the eradication of non-native invasive plant species and water quality improvement.

IRD Duhallow is a not for profit rural development company with the aim of improving the welfare of communities in Duhallow, Cork through generation of enterprise, social supports and voluntary initiatives.

You might ‘Bee’ interested to know, there will be a screening of Colony, the award-winning Irish feature documentary (co-directed by Ross McDonnell and Carter Gunn) on Wednesday October 29th 2014 at 1.15pm. Adults €3 and all accompanied children are FREE. This is an excellent chance to learn more about our Bees and the seriousness of Colony Collapse Disorder along with how this threatens our food supply.

The film is presented by Wexford Tidy Towns in association with Wexford Film Club and the Spiegeltent Festival. Wexford County Council is supporting the event through Wexford Tidy Towns “Let’s Bee Friendly” campaign. Learn more about how you can help our bees also from our gardening tips and pledge your support to the “Let’s Bee Friendly” campaign. We would love to hear about any actions you have taken in the past or intend to do in the future to help the bees on the “Let’s Bee Friendly” page.

“This beautifully photographed film follows several American beekeepers over the course of two years, investigating the unexplainable phenomenon Colony Collapse Disorder which has seen a drop in almost a quarter of the number of bees in the United States, threatening the beekeeping industry and because agriculture depends on pollination, therefore threatening our food supplies.

At the heart of this film is the Seppi family, newcomers to the beekeeping world. As the Seppis face the collapse of their colony and the economy, tensions course through the family. The film manages to combine an urgent environmental issue with a gripping real-life family drama.

Colony premiering at the renowned Toronto International Film Festival Colony has been widely praised on the festival circuit, also winning the First Appearance Award at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival and winning the Best Picture Award at the Anaheim Film Festival.” (Source: Irish Film Board)

Here is an upcoming event that may be of interest to some of the Tidy Town volunteers:

AN EVENING WITH ONE OF WILDLIFE TV’S GREATS GORDON BUCHANAN

8:00pm | Monday 17th November | St Michael’s Theatre, New Ross | Tickets: €15 / €13
See St. Michael’s Theatre website for more details and bookings for this event.

Irish audiences will get a view into the life of a wildlife adventurer this autumn as Gordon Buchanan, the acclaimed cameraman and presenter, embarks on a tour of Ireland, with a show in New Ross on the 17th November. Gordon, who shot and presented the hugely popular BBC nature programmes Winterwatch, The Lost Land, The Polar Bear Family And Me and award-winning The Bear Family And Me, will talk to audiences around Ireland about his incredible experiences with some of the world’s most fearsome and majestic animals.

Gordon will delve into his 20 years’ of globe-trotting adventures, illustrated with his own film footage and photography, to tell tales of his encounters with weird, wild and wonderful wildlife. With a reputation for relishing dangerous and tough assignments, his stories of challenging expeditions make for a thrilling evening. Hailing from the Isle of Mull in western Scotland, Gordon has worked in wildlife documentaries for the past 20 years and is passionate about raising awareness about the world’s endangered species and habitats. He has led expeditions around the globe to places as diverse as South America, Asia, Africa, Papua New Guinea, Russia and Alaska.

Gordon last visited Ireland in 2012 filming humpback whales and dolphins of the coast of Cork and is excited about his return this November. He said: ”I can’t wait to meet wildlife lovers around Ireland and share insights into the amazing creatures that we share our planet with.”