About us

The People and Nature project began as a pilot biodiversity project that ran in the North East of the County in 2005. With the support of the Galway County Heritage Forum

People and Nature is run as a Partnership Project between Galway County Council and NUI, Galway. Financial backing and support comes from Galway County Council, Galway Rural Development and The Heritage Council while the Applied Ecology Unit in NUI, Galway employs the project manager and provides office accommodation, administrative support and access to biodiversity expertise and information.

Elaine O’Riordan MSc is the manager of the Galway County Biodiversity Project and is responsible for the co-ordination and day to day running of the project.

The project is supervised by Marie Mannion, Heritage Officer with Galway County Council, Dr Mike Gormally from the Centre for Environmental Science, NUI, Galway and Miriam Stewart, Galway Rural Development. The project is advised by a steering group with members from Galway County Council, Galway County Heritage Forum, Applied Ecology Unit, NUI, Galway, National Parks & Wildlife Service, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, Landowners, the Forest Service, the Fisheries Board, BirdWatch Ireland (Galway Branch), Galway Rural Development, Heritage Groups and the Local Community, Galway Education Centre.

It is intended to produce a Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) for County Galway this year which will set out our priorities and actions to promote and protect biodiversity in the county in the coming years. It is expected the LBAP will be similar to that produced in County Clare recently. It will be strongly linked and form an integral part of the County Heritage Plan in the future.

The plan will be developed in consultation with the Natural Heritage Working group with input from the other (built and cultural) heritage working groups and other stakeholders. Submissions from the public will also be invited. The consultation process will begin early in the New Year and the document will be published in early summer.