burren LIFE

Project Sites

All of the work of the BurrenLIFE Project will take place on private land and a limited area of State owned land within the three main terrestrial pSCIs which encompass some 30,462ha of the Burren. These are, running from the west to east:

1. Black Head-Poulsallagh Complex Special Area of Conservation, which extends along the north-western coast of the Burren, covering some 5,572 ha.
2. Moneen Mountain Special Area of Conservation, encompassing much of the central Burren 'Uplands', covering some 6,070ha.
3. East Burren Complex Special Area of Conservation, a massive 18,820ha site, which contains much of the Burren lowland region, and features extensive limestone pavement and oligotrophic limestone wetlands.

Within this area there are sixteen Annex I habitats, five of them priority (limestone pavements, orchid-rich grasslands, petrifying springs, turloughs and Cladium fens). The quality and extent of these priority habitats within the Burren is unrivalled elsewhere in Ireland. The two other SACs which cover part of the Burren: Ballyvaughan turlough and the Galway Bay Complex, are primarily aquatic/ coastal habitats and do not form part of the area included in BurrenLIFE Project.

Accurate estimates of the relative proportions of various habitats present in the Burren are difficult to assess as the landscape is composed of a mosaic of bare pavements, orchid rich grasslands, dry limestone heaths and, increasingly, pockets of scrub. Classification of this vegetation has proven notoriously complex, with the main vegetation communities present having been described as a 'continuum' between rich mesotrophic grasslands and depauperate limestone heaths, with a range of Sesleria-dominated calcareous grasslands in between. The priority habitats which feature prominently in the Burren, and which are the focus of this Project include:

Limestone pavement - a glacio-karstic feature of limited distribution in Europe. In Ireland it is largely confined to the Burren region. Of the national total it is estimated that 60% (or 18,000ha) is included in the Project area. These are very high quality limestone pavement habitats, largely intact, with a wide array of interesting karst and karren features.

Species-rich limestone grasslands are closely associated with the Burren in the Irish context, and the grasslands present represent c. 26% of the national cover of 6,000ha of this habitat. These grasslands within the Project area are of very high quality containing species such as blue moor grass, bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus), tormentil (Potentilla erecta) and bloody cranesbill among others. Orchid species include the frog orchid (Coeloglossum viride), bee orchid (Ophrys apifera), fly orchid (Ophrys insectifera), and spotted orchids (Dactylorhiza spp.) among others.

A range of wetlands including turloughs (275 ha, c.9% of the national total), petrifying springs with tufa formations (a good proportion of the estimated national cover of 0.5 ha) and Cladium fens (200 ha, c.8% of the national total for this habitat).

The scale, diversity and quality of these priority habitats are internationally significant. However, they are threatened by a number of factors, largely related to recent changes in land management practices resulting in an imbalance in the traditional relationship between farming and the local Burren environment.