2009 Press Releases
Changes in the Uplands
13.10.2009
Land abandonment is as big a threat to the ecology of upland areas as overexploitation and EU subsidy driven over-stocking was in the recent past according to a research group in UCC who have been examining links between upland biodiversity, farming practices and the socio-economic driving forces behind land use change, on the Iveragh Peninsula, Kerry.
13.10.2009
Land abandonment is as big a threat to the ecology of upland areas as overexploitation and EU subsidy driven over-stocking was in the recent past according to a research group in UCC who have been examining links between upland biodiversity, farming practices and the socio-economic driving forces behind land use change, on the Iveragh Peninsula, Kerry.
The Irish uplands are of high cultural, recreational and nature conservation value. Farming and nature have co-evolved in the hills to the extent that today the conservation of the rich biodiversity contained within the internationally important upland heather moorlands and blanket bog habitats requires the continuation of farming systems, especially sustainable grazing and rotational burning. A UCC research project (BioUp) funded by Science Foundation Ireland and coordinated by Dr Eileen O’Rourke, Geography Department, is modelling changes in the tightly couple social-ecological system prevalent in the Kerry uplands.
The BioUp team have not found evidence for large-scale abandonment of the Iveragh uplands, but a change in the traditional farming system is evident. Today the vast majority of the hill farmers are combining full time off farm work with part- time farming. Part-time farming tends to lead to a simplification of the farm management system, resulting in localised over and under grazing. The research highlights the trend towards moving farming down slope, and concentrating the farming system around the reclaimed ‘green land’, generally positioned around the farm yard, and the less intensive use of the upland rough grazing and commonage. This system may reduce time consuming herding up the mountain, but the reduced grazing of the high uplands has ecological implications.
This research is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), under the Research Frontiers Programme. The rest of the ‘BioUp’ team, included Nadine Kramm, Roz Anderson, Mark Emmerson, John O’Halloran, and Nick Chisholm, UCC.
Pictured L-R: Dr Eileen O’Rourke, Geography, UCC and PhD students Roz Anderson and Nadine Kramm, Environmental Research Institute
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RMcD
The BioUp team have not found evidence for large-scale abandonment of the Iveragh uplands, but a change in the traditional farming system is evident. Today the vast majority of the hill farmers are combining full time off farm work with part- time farming. Part-time farming tends to lead to a simplification of the farm management system, resulting in localised over and under grazing. The research highlights the trend towards moving farming down slope, and concentrating the farming system around the reclaimed ‘green land’, generally positioned around the farm yard, and the less intensive use of the upland rough grazing and commonage. This system may reduce time consuming herding up the mountain, but the reduced grazing of the high uplands has ecological implications.
This research is funded by Science Foundation Ireland (SFI), under the Research Frontiers Programme. The rest of the ‘BioUp’ team, included Nadine Kramm, Roz Anderson, Mark Emmerson, John O’Halloran, and Nick Chisholm, UCC.
Pictured L-R: Dr Eileen O’Rourke, Geography, UCC and PhD students Roz Anderson and Nadine Kramm, Environmental Research Institute
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RMcD