This first newsletter is the launch of the Land for Nature social media and communication strategy. We aim to publish a newsletter every two weeks providing environmental sustainability thoughts and news along with an update on the activity of the Land for Nature project. Each newsletter will also contain a species focus, taking a special look at one of our native species that we’re helping with our habitat preservation initiatives.
We look forward to providing you with information that you find useful as part of our long-term strategy to increase the amount of wilderness land that is set aside for nature. If you want to keep up to date with these newsletters, you can subscribe and don’t forget to tell your friends.
Land for Nature Project Update
Right now we’re at the very beginning of our journey to acquire land and set it aside as natural wilderness, but we have a 100-year plan. The aim is, over the next 100 years, to acquire between 5,000 and 10,000 acres of land and turn it all into native wilderness to support our shrinking biodiversity.
In the immediate term we are beginning to seek a pilot site of approximately 20 acres, which we will use to develop the ecological planning aspects of the Land For Nature organisation.
Species Focus: The Mountain Ringlet
You may have the impression that we don’t seem to see as many butterflies around Ireland as we used to – and your impression would be right. Eighteen percent of the native Irish butterfly fauna is under threat of extinction and a further fifteen percent is near threatened. The focus of this newsletter is one species, the Mountain Ringlet, which is unfortunately extinct in Ireland. All is not lost, however, because the Mountain Ringlet is still found throughout the British Isles and Europe.
A dark brown butterfly with a row of black-centred orange eyespots, it is found predominantly in mountain grassland. Adults are highly active only in bright sunshine. They keep low to the ground in short flights, pausing regularly to bask among grass tussocks.
The Mountain Ringlet was recorded in the nineteenth century in Ireland from Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo to Lough Gill, Co. Sligo and was last reported in 1901 from Nephin Mountain, Co. Mayo.