Freshwater Pearl Mussel Ireland

The Pearl Mussel Project were delighted to attended the Burren Winterage School events to see agri-environment schemes in the Slieve Aughty mountains (led by Hen Harrier Project) and the Burren (led by Burren Programme) over the last few days, where we met a range of groups engaged in agri-environmental results based payment programmes throughout the country. A great opportunity for us to learn from their experiences.

The Burren Winterage School celebrates the unique farming traditions of the Burren and other ‘high nature value’ farming landscapes across Ireland and Europe, as well as sharing ideas on how these special places and their custodians might best be supported at a time of great challenge. 

Further information of the BurrenWinterage weekends events at: 
https://www.burrenwinterage.com/

#pearlmusselproject #musselrivers #EIP-Agri

An interesting series of talks were presented at the Connemara Green Festival last Friday in Letterfrack focusing on the conservation of freshwater pearl mussel in Ireland.

We had lots of interesting feedback on the Pearl Mussel Project given by Derek McLoughlin from PMP and on the wonderful presentations from Marie Louise Heffernan, Bernie Whyte (LAWSAT) and Catherine Seale (LAWCO). Their was a good range of attendees including local farmers, businesses and fisheries owners. Brendan O’Malley of FORUM was an excellent chair for the session. Great to see the positive approach of the Dawros and surrounding catchment communities. Unfortunately due to bad weather and high river levels (good for the mussels... dangerous for humans) the excursion to Dawros River had to be cancelled.

Many thanks to Marie Louise, Janet and Letterfrack Tidy Towns for organising and running the conference which was a great success.

#pearlmusselproject #musselrivers #EIP-Agri