Phil Haygarth (LEC), Phil Jordan (Taegasc) and Bob Harris (Defra) co-organised a successful 3 day international Conference at the Mansion House, Dublin (14-16th September).
The event, jointly hosted by the Irish Agricultural Catchments Programme (Teagasc/DAFF) and the UK Demonstration Test Catchment Project (Defra/EA) brought together scientists, policy makers, farmers and land managers to explore how agricultural catchments can be managed for both economic and environmental objectives.
This question was explored in four themes:
1) Scale issues – networks, observatories and farms. What works best for which stakeholders?
2) Catchment uncertainty – empirical and modelling experiences; uncertainties in science & policy.
3) Counting the cost – socio-economic implications of catchment-scale agri environmental measures.
4) Case Studies – examples of environmental mitigation policies and evaluation science; future challenges.
Simon Coveney TD, Irish Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Environment announced a further 4 years funding for the Irish catchments programme . Minister Coveney said he was “delighted to announce that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine will continue to fund this important Programme over a second 4 year period from 2012 to 2015. This will allow the Programme to continue to build a body of scientific evidence, over several years, which will make an important contribution to the ongoing development of sound agricultural policy”.
A set of images from the event can be found . In contrast, one teacher get diverted here said, students seldom learn history before the 4th or 5th grade
