Saturday, December 16, 2006

Protection and conservation of Ireland's plants

According to the National Botanic Gardens and the Red Data List of Irish plants:

  • 7 species of plant are critically endangered and require immediate intervention if they are to be saved from becoming extinct in Ireland.
  • 9 are already extinct
  • 2 are extinct in the wild
  • 7 are critically endangered
  • 52 are endangered
  • 69 are vulnerable
  • 16 are data deficient – we don’t have enough information to confirm their conservation status
  • 14 species are not considered threatened in Ireland (i.e. the Republic), but are protected in Northern Ireland.

Plants in Ireland's Nature Reserves and National Parks are legally protected. Our rarest species are protected under the 1999 Flora Protection Order, which includes a number of mosses, liverworts, lichens and algae.


The Botanic Gardens has established an Irish Threatened Plant Species Conservation Programme that is developing expertise and knowledge on how best to cultivate and protect Ireland's threatened species of plants. It is also establishing an Irish National Strategy for Plant Conservation.

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The island of ireland

Once upon a time, and for 15000 years, ice a mile high blanketed Ireland. When the lingering Ice Age finally released and the Irish ice departed it left a landscape scoured. Across land bridges linking Ireland, Britain and mainland Europe plants and animals arrived to colonise the new lowlands, mountains and valleys. The world’s ice continued to melt, the sea levels to rise, and some 8000 years ago Ireland became the island we now know, accounting for just 0.01% of the world's total land area and the most westerly point of Europe.

Though at Alaskan latitudes, the country's climate is tempered, due partly to the neighbouring waters of the Gulf Stream and partly the prevailing southwesterlies that veering and backing make landfall on our sodden coast. These offerings from the Atlantic mean it is never too hot, never too cold. But without doubt it is wet. Rain lingers year round, never far away, though is most frequent in winter, the western counties and, inevitably, on the day of your parade.