‘Our Planet, Your Biosphere’ autumn event series is a strategic initiative launched in partnership with Kerry’s Biosphere reserve and Creative Ireland Kerry with support from the Environmental Protection Agency and South Kerry Development Partnership.
The event series included online talks, primary schools workshops, an arts and heritage engagement project ‘StoryScapes’ and the development of educational resources for primary schools.
The ‘Our Planet, Your Biosphere’ event series was designed to promote awareness of the UNESCO Kerry Biosphere Reserve while encouraging citizen wellbeing through engagement with the natural and cultural heritage of the area. Nature connection, visiting outdoor spaces and particularly natural habitats has been proven to increase wellbeing, reduce stress and encourage positive mind-sets. Given the ongoing restrictions imposed by the COVID pandemic, this event series was designed to help individuals and communities to maintain a connection to nature and increase their understanding of the ecology of these areas with a view to increasing their engagement with protected habitats and the work of the UNESCO Kerry Biosphere Reserve once travel restrictions have been lifted.
To increase the impact of the event series we offered several different types of events to encourage intergenerational engagement and to appeal to a wider demography in communities including remote communities, community groups, special interest groups and farmers. This led to the creation of several events types: online community talks, online family workshops, primary school workshops, primary school calendar competition and the ‘StoryScapes’ arts and storytelling project.
Overall the event series included an online launch event, three online community talks, a Storytelling challenge ‘StoryScapes’, the ‘My Kerry Biosphere’ calendar art competition and primary school workshops all about native woodlands and peatlands.
