Advocacy
Along with advocating for the Burren region and its people, Burrenbeo Trust also promote connecting people to landscape everywhere as they identify their role in caring for these places.
Farming for Nature
Inspired by our experience of working with farmers in the Burren region, we established Farming for Nature in 2018 as a national not-for-profit initiative to support high nature value farming in Ireland. Farming for Nature started with a national award to highlight the stories of farmers across Ireland who are making a positive difference to nature on their farms and in their communities. The Farming For Nature project is constantly developing resources, disseminating knowledge on new initiatives and technical innovations and expanding its network to support more and more farmers. Find out more at farmingfornature.ie
Overview of other ongoing advocacy work
Since our inception in 2008, our ongoing advocacy roles include:
- Building community involvement in the landscape from our educational programmes in schools to our heritage walks and festivals such as Burren in Bloom. Most of our programmes focus on building up the community’s connection with the Burren.
- Coordinating the opportunity for a community voice through the Burren Community Charter (2010-present) which brings together key Burren organisations and the community to highlight the challenges on the ground and how can we be proactive in making a change. This has lead onto various projects in the Burren including ChangeXBurren (2014-present) which is looking at solutions to social challenges and the Burren Geopark Tourism for Conservation Programme (2014-present) which is looking to tighten the link between tourism and conservation.
- Coordinating and highlighting the importance of the Burren on an international level to high profile international conservationists such as HRH Prince Charles of Britain (2015), and HRH Princess Irenee of the Netherlands (2011).
- Strengthening the profile of Burren farmers and their positive impacts on the landscape through their unique farming traditions through the annual Burren Winterage Weekend (2012-present) and the Burren Winterage School (2014-present)
- Developing a strong link between local young adults and the landscape through our annual Young Burren Ambassador Bursary (2015-present).
- Collectively building knowledge of conservation models for the Burren by supporting a PhD student researching community wellbeing and landscape (2015-present), and supporting a Masters student looking at the potential of place-based education (2015-present).
- Promoting the sustainable use of the Burren as a Learning Landscape through our training symposium (2012-present), our training of trainer events (2014-present) and our research into the feasibility of this (2013).
- Keeping the Burren at the forefront of people’s agenda by promoting the Burren in both regional and national media throughout the year.
- Keeping the conversation of community-led conservation going by speaking at many external events including presenting to members of the Oireachtas (2015), and to the Social Entrepreneurs of Ireland panel (2015), as well as at conferences such as the European Europarc Conservation Conference (2014) and the GMIT conference on outdoor learning (2016).
- Continuing to work closely with key local organisations for the future sustainable management of the region such as the Burren LIFE Programme, the Burren Geopark, the Burren Irish Farmers Association, the Burren Eco-Tourism Network and others.