December 2010
Members of the Ecotourism Network have been undertaking their Audits this week (13th -17th) in the hope of gaining their Ecotourism accreditation. Each audit last approximately two hours and each business will know early in the New Year whether they have done enough for Ecotourism Ireland Accreditation Standards!
November2010
The Burren Ecotourism Network came together last Saturday November 6th to remove rubbish and recently built mini-cairns at Blackhead and Murrooghtoohy on the Burren’s coast road.
Everyone that attended was satisfied that they had made a visible difference to the location. 260 kg of rubbish was collected and brought to Inagh waste management facility. Collection materials and a free pass to the facility was provided by Clare County Council.
July – October 2010
November 2010
The Ecotourism Network has been working on attaining their accreditation from Ecotourism Ireland. Funding from Failte Ireland has allowed the group undertake the necessary training and now the businesses are preparing for their audits which will take place toward the end of the year. A certain standard must be achieved in order to attain accreditation. Individual one-on-one Mentoring sessions were held with each business in October to help them in this endeavour.
June 2010
The last meeting held on June 10th saw the Burren Ecotourism Network appoint Joanna Mc Inerney as Chairperson, Marie Neylon as Secretary and Orla Vaughan and Chris O’Neill as Co-Treasurers to the group. Congrats to all those on their new appointments. This is an excellent development for the Group which sees them edge closer to the launch of an innovative Ecotourism Network of environmentally minded tourism businesses in the Burren.
May 2010
Failte Ireland supports Greenbox ecotourism accreditation scheme for 20 Burren businesses.
At a recent meeting in the Boghill Centre, Kilfenora, Failte Ireland, Shannon Development, Clare County Council and Clare Local Development Committee confirmed their support for the expansion of the Greenbox Ecotourism Accreditation Scheme for the 20 Burren businesses who have contributed much time and effort to training in ecotourism principles and practices.
Facilitated by Burren Connect and trained by Greenbox Ltd, the network of businesses have worked together to develop environmental policies and ecotourism packages that provide enjoyable and sustainable experiences for visitors to the Burren. Through the packages visitors are encouraged to explore Burren landscape, history and culture in an environmentally sustainable way. The businesses work together to provide visitors with lots of reasons to stay longer in the Burren and to contribute more to the local economy. The businesses are also committed to contributing to conservation programmes and practices that protect the Burren.
The accreditation programme will provide these Burren based tourism businesses with an internationally recognised mark of quality that guarantees the authenticity and environmental sustainability of their businesses and products. Once the programme has been fully established and funding secured, more Burren businesses will be encouraged to join.
For more information on these developments please contact the Burren Connect Office at info@burren.ie or 065-7072295
February 19th and 20th 2010
A two day Ecotourism training workshop took place in the Boghill Centre with speakers from Leave No Trace and the Greenbox's Mary Mulvey speaking about 'Environmental and Sustainable practices for businesses’ on the first day. On the second day, 9 local business people spoke of their Ecotourism Policies in the morning and in the afternoon everyone worked on putting together their own business policies for environmental and sustainable practices .
28 July 2009
Thirteen Burren-based businesses were presented with Certificates in Ecotourism at a ceremony in Gregans Castle Hotel, Ballyvaughan on July 28th.
Participation in the Sligo Institute of Technology course was organised by the Burren Connect Project and subsidised by Responsible Tourism Skillnet.
May 2009
Failte Ireland has invited the Burren Ecotourism Working Group to act as the pilot group for promotion and expansion of ecotourism in Ireland.
February 2009
In recent weeks we held a number of Ecotourism workshops, the focus of these being how we can be more green.
Maurice Bergin from the Green Hospitality Award outlined this award and how to attain it.
To view his presentation, please click here
Pat Stephens from the Limerick Clare Energy Agency gave a very interesting presentation on how to be more more green in your home and/or business.
To view his presentation, please click here
March 2009
Our Cert in Ecotourism, the IT Sligo Special Award in Ecotourism has been ongoing for the past couple of months with 16 participants.
Ecotourism lecturer James Hanrahan from Sligo IT took the participants for classes held over two days in Lisdoonvarna.
As part of the course, participants also got the opportunity to spend two days visiting businesses that had gone through the programme and are now accredited as EU Flower destinations or accredited by Greenbox.
Image provided by Ruairí Ó Conchúir
This Cert is Fetac 5 accredited and is delivered and awarded by Sligo IT. The participants will be receiving there Certs in the coming weeks.
For more information on this cert, please click here
