Thinking about the landscape: The best ways to protect, manage and enhance landscape will be the theme of a conference and public exhibition in Cork city next week.
On Thursday and Friday, more than 120 delegates from throughout Europe will hear speakers address such topics as designing a green-blue metropolis in The Netherlands and organising the EU project, BUGS (Benefits of Urban Green Space).
"One of our [ local] aims is to draw attention to the European Landscape Convention and see what the Department of the Environment, local authorities and the Heritage Council are doing to implement it," says Terry O'Regan, of Landscape Alliance Ireland and Irish representative on the European Landscape Convention.
O'Regan also hopes that the public exhibitions and lectures will encourage the public to think more about the importance of our landscape before it is all destroyed by insensitive development. Public events at Cork City Hall include a talk by Irish climber and broadcaster Dermot Somers (on Monday at 6pm); a forum, Making or Breaking Your Landscape (Tuesday, 4pm); and a lecture by the Netherlands-based American landscape architect, Michelle Lyn Hover, on How Green is Your City? (Wednesday, 6.30pm). The Cinemascopic Landscape exhibition in City Hall will be open from Monday to Friday. For further information, see www. landscape-forum-ireland.com and www.coe.int/ europeanlandscapeconvention.
Living without oil
What we need to do now and when the oil runs out is the theme of two conferences this month. The first, Fuelling the Future, takes place in Kinsale, Co Cork, from Friday to Sunday next and will look at renewable energy options and how towns such as Kinsale could be transformed into low-energy centres through local food links, green businesses and action plans. Details on www.fuellingthefuture.org.
The second conference, Food Security in an Energy-Scarce World?, runs from June 23rd to 25th and looks at how the dependency of food production on fossil fuels can be overcome. The conference is organised by Feasta, the foundation for the economics of sustainability, in association with the Department of Environmental Resource Management at the Faculty of Food and Environment at UCD. Held in UCD, its impressive line-up of speakers includes Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder of the International Society for Ecology and Culture; environmentalist Fr Sean McDonagh; eco-architect Emer O'Siochru; and Bernard Rice, head of crop production and engineering at Teagasc. Details: www.feasta.org or 01-4053615.
Taking the waters
Water is the theme of this year's Lough Ree Environmental Summer School and Arts Festival, which runs from July 3rd to 10th. Now in its eighth year, the summer school emphasises the value of outdoor boat trips, woodland and bogland walks and field trips to explore the flora, fauna and architectural heritage of the area. Environmentalists leading such trips this year include Dr John Feehan, Éanna Ní Lamhna and Richard Collins. Activities are centred around Lanesborough, Co Longford, on the northern tip of Lough Ree. Details: 043-27070; loughree@esatclear.ie; www.loughree.com.