The Burren Action Group, which successfully campaigned to prevent the building of a visitors centre at Mullaghmore, Co Clare, has received a prize from the Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Peatlands.
The International Award for Conservation Merit was presented to the group in Ballyvaughan yesterday evening by Prof Matthijs Schouten, the chairman of the foundation.
He is Professor of Restoration Ecology in the Department of Plant Ecology and Nature Management at the University of Wageningen and a visiting professor at NUI Galway and NUI Cork.
He said the presentation of a bronze statue of a number of plant species which grow in peatlands was largely symbolic.
The award also includes a trip to Holland for one of the Burren Action Group to look at nature conservation there.
Members of the group include the author, John O'Donoghue, Prof Emer Colleran of NUI Galway, Ms Lelia Doolan, the film-maker, and Mr PJ Curtis, an RTÉ presenter.
The Dutch Foundation for the Conservation of Irish Peatlands (DFCIP) was set up in 1983 to help preserve the most important of the Irish bogs in danger of being destroyed through commercial exploitation.
The group has raised €250,000 through private subscription, which paid for four bogs now in the care of the State. Prof Schouten said that while the presentation of the prize to the Burren group represented an extension of its conservation role, the Burren National Park, where the visitors centre was due to be built, had wetlands habitats.
"The Burren is quite renowned in Holland. Generations of Dutch biologists have had field training there. When we first heard of the proposal that a visitors centre was to be built, there was quite a lot of concern.
"We have gained a lot of experience in Holland in building visitors centres in the wrong places, very often because we did not have enough experience with the amount of visitors that would eventually come to centres."
The Burren Action Group is only the second recipient of the prize, which was established four years ago.
In 1998, it was presented to two farmers from Birr, Co Offaly, Mr Liam Egan and Mr Patrick Headon, for saving a bog at Sharavogue, one of the best remaining examples of raised bog.
Prof Schouten added that the Irish Peatland Conservation Council had taken over the conservation work of the Dutch foundation which now provides grants for research.