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ECO EYE

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Eco Eye Series 15 –  Episode 2:  ‘The State Of Nature’

– Ecologist Anja Murray explores the challenges for Nature in Ireland today, and discovers what it would take to conserve and restore our natural heritage.

The Irish Curlew, once prominent across the country, has declined by 90% in the last 30 years. Now conservationists believe that the species’ last 100 breeding pairs have only a sliver of a chance at survival.

Through the story of the last remaining Curlew and its range of habitats, Anja Murray will explore the daily pressures on Ireland’s natural world.

Today only 9% of Irish habitats are listed as “favorable”, while the condition of 61% of our native species is described as ‘poor or bad’. The statistics are bleak, and as climate change promises an even more uncertain future, what can be done to protect Irish wildlife and the vital ecosystem services they provide?

This episode will explore the current state of nature and biodiversity in Ireland today and the pressures at a local and national level.  Ecologist Anja Murray will meet the communities in rural and urban areas that are now at the front line in nature conservation.

The most unlikely heroes in the struggle to save the curlew is Ballydangan Gun Club. Once thought of as a destroyer of nature, this gun club makes great efforts to enhance the biodiversity of its area. Through this story we discover it’s the more inadvertent impacts on nature that have the biggest impacts.

Anja will meet with farmers who are using agricultural practices that have lower impacts on nature and biodiversity, and explore the concept of High Nature Value Farming as a practice of protecting rich natural heritage.

But are community-based initiatives and some individual actions enough to stop and ultimately reverse the decline in Irish biodiversity?