"Managing Landscape Locally" is the title of a day-long public forum in Fota House, Fota Island, Co Cork, on Friday, November 16th. Organised by Landscape Alliance Ireland, the seminar will look at the 1999 Planning and Development Bill, the Department of the Environment draft landscape guidelines and the European Landscape Convention (which Ireland has yet to sign).
Paddy Matthews from the Heritage Council will discuss the concept of landscape characterisation (in which areas are categorised according to their defining landscape) and representatives from local groups such as the Bantry Charter and the Cork Environmental Forum will discuss their projects.
"The difficulty is that people often don't appreciate what they have until someone wants to change it," says Terry O'Regan, landscape horticulturist and founder member of Landscape Alliance Ireland. "We would like to see local communities becoming more pro-active about what they value in their landscape - urban, suburban or rural - and the style of development they would like to see happening.
Landscape Alliance was set up in the early 1990s to provide opportunities for everyone - from planners and environmentalists to artists and hillwalkers - to discuss landscape and its valuable components, whether preserved from the past, added to the present or planned for the future. The forum fee is £50 (£20 concessions). Tel: 021-4871460; e-mail: lia.link@indigo.ie
Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop and environmental and human rights campaigner, encouraged everyone to become vigilant consumers and ethical watchdogs in a talk on globalisation to business people in Dublin recently.
Proclaiming that she is becoming more radical as she grows older, Roddick condemned globalisation as "the latest name for pitting the rich against the poor".
She called on businesses to show more developed emotions than greed and fear and predicted the rise of the politics of conscience in the form of non- governmental organisations. She called for a new form of international protectionism that would penalise companies for environmental destruction, employing child labour and using sweatshops.
Her new book, Take it Personally - How Globalisation Affects You and Powerful Ways to Challenge it (Thorsons, UK £12.99), has contributions from many non-governmental organisations. It is an excellent source book for those who believe international business needs a new set of principles.
Conservation Volunteers Ireland and the Forest Service of the Department of the Marine and Natural Resources are hosting a series of public lectures at ENFO, St Andrew St, Dublin 2, as part of the annual Seed Collection Season.
Dale Treadwell, from Conservation Volunteers, will speak about seed collection and propagation in the first lecture at 2 p.m. today. John O'Reilly, from Woodlands of Ireland, will speak about its seed collection initiatives at 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 10th; Dr Declan Little will give updates on the People's Millennium Forests at 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 17th; and Kevin Collins, from the Forest Service, will speak about the new NeighbourWood scheme and Native Woodland scheme at 2 p.m. on November 24th. Admission is free to all lectures (tel: 01-4982946).
Crann's annual festival of trees, FΘile Shamhna na gCrann, is midway through its month-long celebrations. Today's seminar on "The Economics of Broadleaves" at the National Botantic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, will be followed by a guided walk through the gardens at 2.30 p.m.
A woodcraft fair starts at noon tomorrow at the Shannon Hotel, Banagher, Co Offaly. Thomas Becht, of the Sustainable Land Use Company, near Glenties, Co Donegal, is giving weekend tours of his organic farm and broadleaf forest plantation until November 18th (tel: 075-51286).
Courses include one on hedgerow management in Geashill, Co Offaly, on November 9th and 10th and another on woodland management following ecological principles from November 12th to 4th, in Oak Glen II, Coolbawn, Co Tipperary. Booking is essential for both these courses (tel: 0509-51718; e-mail: info@crann.ie) and observers are also welcome.
The festival comes to a close on Saturday, November 17th with a poetry and music evening at 8 p.m. in Charleville Castle, Tullamore, Co Offaly. See also www.crann.ie
www.crann.ie
This is the well-designed website of the charity which promotes the planting of broadleaf trees. As well as plenty of information about Crann's own activities (and the current tree festival), the site has useful information on the Forest Stewartship Council, the Tree Register of Ireland (a database of remarkable trees in Ireland) and Tree Preservation Orders. The kids' corner has step-by-step guidelines on how to plant a native oak tree.
