Wicklow woodlands and one business shortlisted for forest and sustainability awards

A Wicklow business has also made the shortlist in the RDS Sustainability Awards, which run alongside the festival.

Ballard Forest, Laragh is shortlisted for the ‘Community Woodland Award’, which is designed to encourage and reward projects involving the communal ownership and/or management of forests and woodlands, which have been established and managed in a sustainable way that is beneficial to the local economy and environment.

Ballard Forest is owned by Coillte and is an old woodland site which has been under forestry since before 1830. The area in question is 33 hectares in size and is dominated by oak woodland which has been present since 1880. The Avonmore river adds to the tranquillity of the area, bounding the area to the north and west. There is also areas of birch, Japanese larch and Lawson Cypress.

Altidore Organic Estate was built beside a medieval castle of the O’Toole family, on the eastern slopes of the Wicklow Mountains, north of Newtownmountkennedy. The castle looks out over wooded parkland to the coastal plain and the Irish sea beyond. It was built as a residence for General Thomas Pearce, uncle of the Surveyor General Sir Edward Lovett Pearce, in about 1730. Sir Edward designed some of Ireland’s finest early Palladian buildings and architectural historians speculate that he may well have been responsible for the design of Altidore. It is shortlisted in the ‘Native Woodland Conservation Award’ category.

The RDS Sustainability Awards celebrate the work of individuals, farm families and organisations who are enhancing the economic, environmental and social development of Irish agriculture and rural communities. Based in the Glen of Imaal in the Wicklow Mountains, Ériu, a 145-acre beef and sheep farm has been shortlisted in the ‘Sustainable Farming Award’ category.

They are pedigree breeders of Blue Face Leicester and Romney sheep. They also are pedigree breeders of Aubrac Cattle since 1999. Ériu farm using organic practices. Their sheds are 2/3 straw for bedding and 1/3 slats for animal comfort, and to attain farm yard manure to make compost for our soil fertility.

The sheep from the farm supply their wool business Ériu ‘From Farm to Yarn’, along with the sustainable farm to yarn networks they have created around the country which are incentivising farmers to grow and expand their flocks of dual purpose breeds.