Big, Beautiful, Biodiverse Ballyhoura: what happens when we pay attention to nature

Nestled in the heartlands of south-western Ireland, the rolling hills and picturesque countryside of Ballyhoura are teeming with local flora and fauna, from red squirrels to native pygmy shrews, bats, beetles and moths. The ancient countryside features a surprisingly diverse array of ecosystems all within a short hike of each other – heath-blanketed mountains, pastoral lowlands, lakes, waterways, parklands, woodlands, forestry, and peatlands. 

Nestled amongst these natural riches are small villages and farming towns, but surveys found that the inhabitants of these communities often felt unconnected with their region’s biodiversity and didn’t know how to best help their local ecosystems to flourish. The local SHARED GREEN DEAL action set out to change that. 

Stop, look, listen – to life

Over the past year, a group of people from across the Ballyhoura region came together to try something simple: pay attention to the biodiversity around them. The idea was to stop, look, and listen, to notice what’s growing, flying, crawling, and disappearing in the places we live. It wasn’t about big campaigns or dramatic changes. It was about learning, sharing, and seeing what happens when a community starts exploring its natural environment, together.

The project kicked off in June 2023 with a public launch. People from all walks of life showed up, listened to a talk by famed Irish biologist and broadcaster Éanna Ní Lamhna, and signed up to take part. From there, the group met regularly in what were called “Study Circles”, monthly sessions that mixed field trips, talks, and hands-on activities.

Study Circle participants at a photography workshop.

Some sessions were straightforward, like walking through Kilmoylan Bog or visiting a commercial apple farm to see how farming can best connect with and support local species. Others were more creative; participants made pottery inspired by local wildlife, took photos of plants and insects, and even built strawberry planters out of twigs and twine. There were talks about bats, moths, heritage, and the Irish language. All this activity eventually resulted in a short film, co-created by the group, that told the story of what they’d learned.

So ultimately, what became of the social experiment with Ballyhoura’s biodiversity? A lot of people got more curious about nature. Some were surprised by how much life exists in their local area. Others realised they’d been interested in nature all along, but they just hadn’t called it “biodiversity.” The project helped people connect the dots between farming, heritage, creativity, and the environment. It also gave people a reason to meet, talk, and share ideas, especially those who’d felt isolated after the pandemic.

Not everything worked perfectly. Transport was a challenge: Ballyhoura is a big and mostly rural area, and public transport is patchy; some people couldn’t make it to every session. Transport was especially challenging for several of the social groups that the experiment set out to specifically reach - older adults, people with disabilities, one-parent households, low-paid workers, carers and the long-term unemployed. Keeping momentum over a year was tough, and the study circle format took time to get used to. But the field trips were a hit, and the informal chats, on buses, after talks and over tea, turned out to be just as valuable as the planned activities.

As Rhiannon Laubach, one of the experiment leads, commented, “the experiment has been an excellent social outlet for our participants, (especially) those who have been isolated by Covid… it created interactions between different communities in our region that may have never occurred without this project, (providing) not only a social outlet, but an interest in biodiversity.”

Study Circle participants learning about biodiversity.

Natural knowledge

One of the most important takeaways was that people want to learn more about their local environment, but they need spaces that feel accessible and welcoming. Scientific jargon doesn’t often help: terms like ecosystem, natural capital, or even biodiversity can be seen as off-puttingly academic by non-specialists. 

What does help is being outside, talking to others, and feeling like your experience – and your insights – matter. Everyone has some existing knowledge of nature and wildlife, even if it’s just what they’re used to seeing in their gardens or on their walk to work. And often, this valuable insight is not related to scientific understandings of biodiversity, species, ecosystems, or taxonomic clades, but instead springs from a deep love of nature that has come from living, working, and being alongside and within it. 

Through the study circles, the participants shared their knowledge, understanding, and passion for nature with each other – and felt empowered by the experience. Several participants are already using what they learned: one is teaching biodiversity in her school, another is helping start a heritage group, and others are sharing knowledge with their communities.

The experiment highlighted a crucial insight that’s easy to overlook: this kind of local, non-scientific local knowledge is rich and invaluable, but it’s often ignored in policy and planning. That’s something worth changing.