With a view to positively impacting Ireland’s natural heritage and biodiversity and assisting in expanding the country’s ancient woodlands, The iNUA Collection begins a new partnership with Irish Trees at Dunsany Castle Nature Reserve.
As part of their ongoing commitment to sustainable practices, the first initiative will come from The iNUA Collection’s Tullamore Court Hotel, which has arranged to plant over 3,500 Native Irish trees, including alder, birch, oak, willow, Rowan and Scots Pine, over the next five years through its partnership with Irish Trees at Dunsany, with the initiative to be rolled out across The iNUA Collection’s hotel portfolio.
The first Irish project to be recognised by the European Rewilding Network and Ireland’s largest private rewilding project, Dunsany Nature Reserve in County Meath has 750 acres dedicated exclusively to rewilding. Naturalist and film-maker Randal Plunkett, 21st Baron of Dunsany, took the unorthodox gamble of deciding in 2014 to rewild his family’s demesne, creating a now-thriving 750-acre nature reserve. A radical move, rewilding meant removing all grazing animals from the property, gearing towards restoring ecosystems to the point where nature can take care of itself, and creating a regenerating haven of native forests, fields, springs, streams and marshes. This has led to increased biodiversity, including sightings of rare local bird species not recorded in the area for a long time such as red kites, woodpeckers, barn owls, long-eared owls, herons and sparrow hawks, along with red deer, foxes, otters, badgers, pine martens, hares and stoats. Dunsany is now home to an abundance of flora, fauna and wildlife.
“Recognising our impact on the environment,” says Sean O’Driscoll, CEO of The iNUA Collection, “and as part of our commitment to sustainable practices, we are investing in nature and biodiversity as a hotel group. Our plans are initially to plant 3,500 native trees over the next five years starting with Tullamore Court Hotel, planting trees in person at Dunsany Nature Reserve with many of our corporate clients, as well as with team members. This is the first step in creating our own iNUA Collection Woodland and we look forward to time spent planting a broad range of native Irish trees with our clients, colleagues and friends, to create wild, abundant, and biodiverse habitats that will never be harvested on this 850-year-old Estate. We’ll be able to visit our trees over the years to come and see our legacy grow, as we make a real investment into Ireland’s natural heritage. Tullamore Court Hotel is the first hotel to sign up for this initiative and it is the first of many, as teams across the Collection are keen to be involved”.
“We are delighted to partner with the iNUA collection to help expand and reconnect these ancient woodlands and every tree counts” says Bob Hamilton of Irish Trees. “More trees mean cleaner air, cleaner water, and a habitat for insects, animals, and birds. Each tree makes an impact, and it all makes a long-lasting difference”. For more information on this initiative and The iNUA Collection, visit www.inua.ie
