New environmental coverage in the Irish Times

Welcome to the new Irish Times Environment Page, where we will be expanding and deepening our coverage of, and reflections from, the environment over the coming weeks, months and years.

Our relationship with the natural world has rightly become one of the defining issues of this century. However, the constant association of “the environment” with “catastrophe” is profoundly unhelpful, disabling, and simply wrong. Engaging with nature should be a source of pleasure, not a trigger for crippling anxiety.

We cannot and must not evade the daunting challenges of climate change, land degradation, and biodiversity loss. The road to December’s Paris COP21 conference, and beyond, will be among the stories you read here. But our sense of helplessness in the face of such devastating changes too often slides into despair; then it can collapse into weary, fatalistic indifference.

To counter this, we need to focus more on expanding the ways citizens, educators, scientists and communities are already finding to engage positively with nature, and reviving old ones. Here at home, and across the world, there has been a surge in innovative conservation and restoration projects, in urban agriculture, in sustainable farming programmes and in artisan food production, to give just a few examples.

New research has confirmed the widespread conviction that the physical and mental wellbeing of children and adults depends to a remarkable degree on their ability to access, and engage with, natural landscapes. Hospitals are recognising that even very small increases in contact with nature significantly benefit patients.

When children are given an opportunity to encounter wildlife and wild places, even in urban settings, their sense of wonder and delight is almost always spontaneous and immediate. We need to find ways to nurture and sustain this pleasurable engagement with nature through all phases of education, and in adult workplaces and leisure activities.

If more people enjoyed a closer relationship with the natural world, and had a more direct grasp of nature’s extraordinary variety and resilience, our society would be in a better place to tackle the consequences of centuries of environmental abuse by our species.

The focus of the “green” constituency to date has too often been too negative and too narrow.

No-one has done more to evoke the wonders of nature for Irish Times readers, over several generations now, than Michael Viney, in his Another Life column and in his delightful, informative and insightful books.

It is a privilege to join him as a regular contributor, along with Sylvia Thompson and other colleagues, to this very welcome development of expanded weekly environmental coverage in The Irish Times. Viney's column will continue to be the flagship of this coverage.

Wide-ranging themes

General themes will be wide-ranging, and may include: opportunities for individual engagement with the natural environment, from mushroom foraging to whale-watching; environmental policy at home and abroad; lifestyle in relation to environment; energy issues; community-based environmental projects; agriculture, landscapes and biodiversity; conservation and restoration; the natural environment in urban contexts; innovative approaches to tackling our various environmental challenges; eco-holidays at home and abroad; artisan food production and traditional crafts that heighten environmental awareness.

The design of the homes and towns we live in, and of built infrastructure generally, can have significant environmental costs and benefits, and we will explore these from time to time.

In my own articles, I will highlight new environmental projects, especially those involving ordinary citizens, and also educational programmes that engage children in an active relationship with the natural world.

Interest in these issues extends throughout our communities, urban and rural, right across the country. From time to time, I will report from abroad, linking the stories to themes and contexts familiar at home. I will also focus on environmental policy and science issues.

While never minimising the grave environmental challenges we face, I hope to highlight areas where advances are being made, and the pleasure that many people derive from working together to reverse degradation and restore biodiversity. We are particularly keen to find ways of drawing readers’ attention to opportunities to delight in nature close to home throughout the year.

For example, many of us are unaware how easy it is to find orchids in most parts of Ireland, even on an urban street, if you know where and when to look for them. Or that it is possible to witness the wonder of the massive seasonal migrations of birds, close up and personal, even within our biggest cities.

We hope a closer relationship with our readers will develop; there is certainly a great web of knowledge and experience beyond our inevitably limited circles as writers that we would like to share with the reading public.

We hope you will enjoy, and perhaps contribute to, this ongoing expansion of the paper's long history of environmental coverage. Ideas for articles and images, as well as responses to what we publish – as frank as you like – are always welcome. Comment on this article at irishtimes.com. Paddy Woodworth is the author of Our Once and Future Planet: Restoring the World in the Climate Change Century, recently reissued in paperback by the University of Chicago Press. He is a founding member of the Irish Forum for Natural Capital, and lectures on environmental issues in the US and Ireland.