It is fitting that a column about change has to face change itself and today’s is my final Game Changer. It has been a joy to talk to people taking positive actions, either personally or at a system level. And the momentum is building.
When I first spoke to Brian O’Toole and Gilly Taylor in WildAcres in Wicklow they had dug 13 ponds on their 6.8-hectare (17-acre) nature reserve. Less than two years on they have almost three times that number and they have inspired others to take this powerful landscape action for biodiversity.
Across the board of our impact – food, transport, consumption and the natural world – there are people working to change the system for the better. The community-supported agriculture scheme of the north Dublin, Farfield Farmacy, that pays a farmer to grow healthy food connected each week to the customers who pick up the delicious produce.
I have charted our transition away from a gas hob, wood-burning stove and a hybrid car to electric power for cooking and transport. I have bemoaned the hazards of cycling while trying to celebrate its benefits, and the essential kit that is a pair of rain trousers. The walking app that helped me get back to running was a useful reminder of the health benefits of the simplest form of active transport: walking.
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The unsung heroes singing the praises of the unsung parts of our landscape such as Alan Moore of Hedgerows Ireland, the Burrenbeo Hare’s Corner and Natural Heritage Keepers projects, the work of the Irish Agroforestry Forum in educating farmers and consumers about regenerative farming practices using trees on productive farms.
There have been so many women warriors to write about: Caitriona Kenny of garden share project Community Roots, Mary Fleming and Oileán Carter-Stritch of Change Clothes Crumlin, Prof Jane Stout and Prof Yvonne Buckley and Dr Úna Fitzpatrick from the National Biodiversity Data Centre; the many artists including Lisa Fingleton, Annika Berglund, Yanny Petters and Eoin Mac Lochlainn working to draw our attention to the beauty of the natural world as well as highlight the perils it (and we) face.
Writing this column has given me hope and feedback from you, the readers, are a big part of that. The biggest response I ever got to anything in nearly three decades of journalism was the outpouring of joy in response to my piece about our woodland establishment project in Co Roscommon.
[ Growing vegetables is a dying art in Ireland. This man has a solutionOpens in new window ]
In June, I got to go to the Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas to interview Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell about Knepp, their wilded estate in the UK. Tree’s book, Wilding, has been a huge inspiration. I have been recording a second season of the Irish Agroforestry Forum’s Conversation Beneath the Trees podcast, to be released in the autumn. And I will be continuing to celebrate people working for nature reconnection on The Pocket Forests Podcast as well as the ongoing work of Pocket Forests. Heartfelt thanks to everyone at The Irish Times for giving me this space to write about the game changers among us. It has been a privilege and a pleasure.