Landscape Management

High tourism level and others challenges are having an impact on the landscape, the volunteers are working to do something about it.

Landscape Management varies from litter picking on areas of high tourism to taken down of mini-dolmens.

Litter picking along the coastline

In the Burren there is an abundance of spectacular coastline to admire and visit, but unfortunately it doesn’t always get the respect and love it deserves. It’s not uncommon to witness washed up plastic, rubbish and other waste materials which are both hazardous for our marine life and our communities, scattered across the sand, rocks and water – ruining our beautiful coasts.

As we all know plastic and most other debris either cannot or is slow to decompose and can remain within our oceans for hundreds of years. This has a detrimental and immediate impact on our marine life as many forms  can be injured by the plastic or mistake it for food, slowly killing them over time. Animals who are most often the victims of plastic debris include turtles, dolphins, fish, sharks, crabs and sea birds.

Recognising this as a huge problem and eager to do something about it, Burrenbeo Conservation Volunteers (BCV) have been working hard in association with An Taisce’s ‘Clean Coasts’ and ‘National Spring Clean’ for many years conducting annual beach/coast cleans across the Burren coastline. Along the long the rocky coastline to the south of Fanore beach, 760kg (2016), 540kg (2015) and 250kgs (2014) of rubbish were collected by the volunteers to date.

Mini dolmens

Removing of the limestone pavement is a forbidden activity as this protected and rare habitat.  Mini-dolmens are being built along the areas of high tourism impact and are both distractive to the habitat, an insult to the local culture and landscape.

Why not join us

So, are you interested to be part of maintaining the Burren’s history, culture and precious ecosystems? If so, why not join the fun and enthusiastic team of conservation volunteers, share your passion for the Burren with others and make a huge difference to the biodiversity and maintenance of this unique landscape. Becoming a volunteer offers you an opportunity to build skills, knowledge about place and indeed, lasting friendships.

This is an active group of conservation volunteers that have been working in areas of archaeology conservation, rare species monitoring, managing scrub encroachment and much more since 2010.  We have 1-2 events a month.

• Get outdoors, enjoy some healthy exercise and give something back in the region
• Learn new skills in conservation and heritage management
• Be part of a friendly, inclusive and active conservation community

Join us today and make that difference!  To register for the events email [email protected]

What are the upcoming events for the volunteers

What other ongoing projects are the volunteers involved in:

drystone walling  archaeological surveys   scrub management

species monitoring   invasive species

What have the volunteers achieved?

View below all the activities that the Burrenbeo Conservation volunteers have achieved since 2010: