The Pearl Mussel Project are delighted to welcome our two new catchment officers Tara Challoner and Mary McAndrew to the team working on the project to protect freshwater pearl mussels in Ireland. Tara will be working with farmers in the southern catchments in Cork and Kerry out of our Kenmare office, while Mary will be providing farmer support in the west and north-west catchments in Mayo, Galway and Donegal from her home base in Mayo.
Mary McAndrew has spent the past two and 1/2 years advising farmers on behalf of both the Farm Relief Services and Teagasc, and working with farmers for the GLAS agri-environmental scheme. Mary also worked on the Knowledge Transfer Groups programme, hosting meetings for farmers on relevant topics.
Contact email: mary@pmproject.ie
Tara Challoner has been working as a farm conservation advisor on hill farms in the UK since 2011 and has worked on several agri-environment schemes, including catchment sensitive farming and the development of the results-based agri-environmental pilot scheme (RBAPS) project for the European Forum on Nature Conservation and Pastoralism (ENFCP) in the Yorkshire Dales. She has trained several groups of farmers and set up a land manager group who have joined a Natural England facilitation fund, whereby they agree to work together to protect the environment at a landscape scale.
Contact email: tara@pmproject.ie
