Growing botanical skills in Northern Ireland

An important announcement from Julia Hanmer, BSBI Chief Executive: 

"We are delighted that BSBI has been awarded funding to grow botanical skills and evidence for nature recovery in Northern Ireland, thanks to funding from the Department of Agriculture, Environment & Rural Affairs (DAERA)’s Environment Fund. 

"The project will work to support botanical training, recording and monitoring activities over five years, 2023-2028. We will recruit a Botanical Skills Officer, who will organise training and events to encourage plant identification and recording, as well as working to increase participation in the National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS). 

"We will work closely with DAERA, the Centre for Environmental Data and Recording (CEDaR) and our NPMS partners (BSBI, Plantlife, the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology) as well as landowners and other organisations to ensure there are the necessary botanical skills and evidence to underpin nature recovery in Northern Ireland".

Many thanks to Julia for sharing this exciting news and to DAERA for funding this new post - more details and application forms can be found here. You can find out more about BSBI's current staff and officers on our Who's Who page, and if you are keen to know more about BSBI's botanical provision across the whole island of Ireland, both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, please visit our Ireland page.