Press Release
Go Wild with Kildare County Council for Biodiversity Week 2023
Kildare County Council is delighted to confirm that Kildare Biodiversity Week 2023 will take place from Friday 19th May to Sunday 28th May beginning with a Bumble Bee Identification Walk in Castletown, an Urban Biodiversity Foraging Walk and Talk in Kildare Town and a Tour of Naas’s Nature by Bike on Friday 19th May.
National Biodiversity Week is all about connecting people with nature. Kildare Biodiversity Week is a great opportunity for people to get out and find out more about nature and Wildlife in Kildare. It’s about communicating the importance of biodiversity and motivating people to play their part in protecting it. It’s also about entertaining them, showing the fun and wonder that can be found in nature and inspiring people to learn more, see more and do more.
The word 'biodiversity' is coined from biological diversity, it’s about the variety of plant and animal species and the interaction between them. It is this interaction that is essential for life, giving us all the things we need - clean air, water, agriculture, food and amenity.
Ireland’s biodiversity is in a state of crisis. Around one-third of Ireland’s 98 wild bee species are threatened with extinction, while recent findings show that over 60 per cent of the 202 species of commonly occurring birds in Ireland are now on the red and amber conservation lists.
Over 90 per cent of 58 listed habitats in Ireland also have an ‘inadequate’ or ‘bad’ status and just over half of the 61 European protected species in Ireland have a ‘favourable’ conservation status.
“At this time of biodiversity crisis, it is important for the public to gain an understanding of our local biodiversity and so Kildare Biodiversity Week has been organised to develop awareness of the importance of biodiversity and to better understand its value to the local, national and international communities” explains Bridget Loughlin, County Kildare Heritage Officer. “The people of Kildare are invited to get out into Kildare’s Biodiversity, to visit Kildare wild spots, lakes, rivers, bogs, woodlands or to simply enjoy the biodiversity of their back garden”.
This listing of events has been compiled by Kildare County Council and is available in local libraries and Biodiversity Week - Kildare County Council (kildarecoco.ie). All events are free but some may require advance booking. For details of events go to https://biodiversityweek.ie/events-calendar/
