Baxter Contributes to Emerging Wilderness in Ireland.
In 2010, I received a very enjoyable visit from Bill Murphy, a fellow forester and recreation manager from Ireland. Bill serves as Head of Recreation, Environment and Public Goods for a Coillte, a semi-state forestry company managing over 1 million acres of State (we would think of it as “National”) forest land in Ireland ( http://www.coillteoutdoors.ie/ ).
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| Bill Murphy |
[1] A “public” company is a company listed on the stock exchange while a “private” company is not – it can be owned by an individual, a family, or in this case the State (Ireland).
Ireland is about 3 ½ times the size of Maine. Coillte manages 443,000 hectares (equal to a little over 1,100,000 acres) of land, about 7% of the area of Ireland. While Coillte is focused on managing forests for timber production, it is also very active in encouraging and managing for a wide range of recreational activities on a beautiful landscape that is widely used and dearly treasured by the Irish people.
Over the
course of a couple of days, Bill and I spent some time in the Park and
discussed a wide range of management issues related to wilderness and
recreation management. Bill’s questions
all had a purpose – he had identified a remote and relatively unmodified
landscape and he wanted to propose the area be set aside as wilderness.
The concept
and certainly the original expression of wilderness as a societal value has its
roots in America and is best exemplified by the passage of the Wilderness Act
by Congress in 1964. The much more
extensive and long cultural and land use history in Europe makes an expression
of wilderness in American terms more difficult.
However, forward thinkers like Bill Murphy and the broader thinking
resulting from the European Union have provided new avenues for the acceptance
and application of wilderness in the European context. The European Commission
on the Environment produced the Natura
2000 as a plan to conserve biodiversity across the European landscape. Natura
2000 includes specific definitions of wilderness and the challenges of
wilderness area creation and management in a European context (http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/natura2000/).
After our
time together, Bill continued his work on establishing a wilderness area on
Coillte managed lands. Late in 2012, I
received an invitation to speak at a conference hosted by Coillte and the
National Parks and Wildlife Service (Ireland) to both address the issues of
“Wilderness in a Modified Landscape” and to mark the launch of the Nephin Beg
Wilderness Area on Coillte and National Park lands in the Nephin Beg mountain
range, County Mayo in the west of Ireland. Coillte has provided an informative
video of the Nephin Wilderness project http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N1CZRu2f7lM
In May, I
made the trip to Ireland and spoke at the conference. The conference was attended by more than 100
delegates from 8 European countries and a wide range of Irish stakeholders and
also included a presentation from the Environmental Directorate of the European
Union. The first day of the very
interesting and provided a full introduction to the issues and challenges
facing wilderness establishment in the European context. For my presentation and others see http://www.coillte.ie/intex.php?id=1910
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| Conferenced Attendees |
Day two of the conference was all about visiting the Nephin Beg Wilderness, or at least the edge of this 11,000 hectare (27,500 acre) wilderness area north of Westport in County Mayo, Ireland.
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| English Entrance Sign to the Nephin Wilderness |
The field
trip included stops to view and discuss numerous issues involved with the
initial stages of establishing the wilderness.
We spent some time at a small stone building called a “bothy” – originally designed as a shelter for shepherds, now being considered as the primary trailhead and parking opportunity for the newly designated area. The trailhead included access to the “Bangor Trail”, an ancient drovers route that is recorded on maps as early as 1590 and traverses the area offering a wilderness hike of over 25km. A reminder that the Bangor of my home had origins in Ireland.
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| Brogan Carroll Bothy |
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| View into the Nephin Wilderness |
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| Water pouring from peat |
As you would
expect, the surface footing was soft and wet.
This poses a serious problem for defined trail access. Any significant foot traffic on a defined
treadway would quickly work through the thin vegetated layer and enter the peat
beneath. When this happens, it is game
over regarding the maintenance of the path as a hiking trail. Coillte demonstrated a section of trail where
an excavator was employed to remove the peat layer and replace it with coarse
sub-soil material from below the peat layer.
As you can see from the photo, this approach has significant impacts in both site disturbance and cost but is likely to produce a trail tread that can withstand significant hiking traffic. The adjacent disturbance will likely be quickly revegetated in the damp Irish climate. This process is likely not applicable for any length of trail in the Wild Nephin,(and is being used here on a section of the heavily used “trail” in part of the developed natural zone of the new wilderness) but it is an example of the adaptive and energetic approach to addressing recreation challenges brought to bear by Bill Murphy and his staff at Coillte.
As you can see from the photo, this approach has significant impacts in both site disturbance and cost but is likely to produce a trail tread that can withstand significant hiking traffic. The adjacent disturbance will likely be quickly revegetated in the damp Irish climate. This process is likely not applicable for any length of trail in the Wild Nephin,(and is being used here on a section of the heavily used “trail” in part of the developed natural zone of the new wilderness) but it is an example of the adaptive and energetic approach to addressing recreation challenges brought to bear by Bill Murphy and his staff at Coillte.
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| Reconstructed trail section through peat layer |
We also spent
some time looking at the Wild Nephin’s latest construction project. This shelter was constructed by volunteer labor
provided by Mountain Meitheal. Mountain
Meitheal (http://www.pathsavers.org) is an Irish trail conservation club similar
to the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC) in the US and the leanto was
constructed by the club to celebrate their tenth anniversary and the launch of
the wilderness area. The shelter was
similar, but more refined than a typical log leanto in Baxter Park and utilized
machined “log” walls and an OSB and cedar shingle roof. In the photo below, you can see the water
collection device on the side of the leanto which captures and stores water
from roof run-off for use by hikers.
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| New Leanto at the edge of the Nephin Wilderness |
As a result
of the gracious hospitality of Bill and his wife Bairbre, I was able to stay in
Ireland for several days before and after the conference and spend time In
Wicklow Mountains National Park with Regional Manager Wesley Atkinson, of the
National Parks and Wildlife Service as well as additional time on Coillte lands
on a tour as part of an conference on Ecosystem Services. The complexity of the interacting concerns
of environmental, ecosystem and social issues in land management in Ireland is
extremely interesting and for me, very encouraging. Recently, we have been
discussing continuing to share our knowledge and experience on the wilderness
concept and the management of wilderness.
I have the greatest hopes that over time the Irish people will treasure
the Nephin Wilderness just as Maine people treasure Baxter State Park.
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| Wilderness catalysts Bill Murhph of Coillte and Denis Strong of the Irish National Parks and Wildlife Service at the Gaelic version of the Nephin Wilderness entrance sign (Nice hat, Bill!!) |
[1] A
“public” company is a company listed on the stock exchange while a “private”
company is not – it can be owned by an individual, a family, or in this case
the State (Ireland).
