Last week, Supervalu Tidy Towns released the annual competition results. The special awards are fourteen categories additional to the main competition. Ballyduff has won the Village and Small Town section of the Climate Action Award, with a prize of €2250.
The primary aim of the Climate Action Award, supported by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications, is to acknowledge the valuable contributions that local communities make towards addressing climate change. This award seeks to enhance awareness of climate action and foster climate literacy, empowering local communities to drive change at the grassroots level, while also encouraging behavioural shifts within the locality.
Some of the projects included the planting of an orchard and a native woodland fence in the local Priest Meadow, providing habitats, shelter and food. They organised two Bioblitz sessions with Ballyduff school led by Niamh Ní Dhúill, where plant and insect species were identified in two phases. They have created three ponds, as well as a video series on sustainability that they began during lockdown. Four-pocket forests were set this year around the village. The committee saved seeds and took slips to reduce costs and single-use plastic.
Committee members tell us it was a big surprise and they’re thrilled. ‘Community is everything. We get great support from the Men’s Shed, our CE worker, and the generous community, groups and businesses of Ballyduff. Transition Kerry has taught us so much about climate action and biodiversity. We can’t thank them and our friends at ‘From the Ground Up’ enough.’ Since completing Transition Kerry’s Biodiversity and Climate Change Community Leadership Programme, the committee tells us there’s now a whole network of like-minded groups in Kerry who want to do better for the environment. ‘We now partake in various county-wide WhatsApp groups to exchange ideas and arrange meitheals, share seeds and plants, and gift or upcycle used items instead of sending stuff to landfill.
Their plans include maintaining what they have, as well as a few new ideas. They are currently planting more pollinator bulbs such as snowdrops, crocus and bluebells around the village to help insects in the hungrier months. They’d also like to develop their signage to raise awareness about easy actions for biodiversity. Mowing less, not just in May but in any month, is a very simple action, for example. Making a micro-pond in your garden is easy and inexpensive and creates habitats. The group also discovered there are solitary mining bees in the village and they want to learn more about this.
Ballyduff Tidy Towns tells us, ‘what’s very exciting is that most of the actions we took didn’t cost much and were easily replicable. Mostly anyone could do them, whether you’re in a community group, on the farm, at work or just in your own back garden.’
Find out more about Ballyduff Tidy Towns and Transition Kerry on Facebook.
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