a message from cormac

Preserving Wildlife and Tackling Climate Change: The Vision of Wild Gaia

I have been fascinated by the natural world since I was knee high to a grasshopper. This first manifested itself by an almost obsessive consuming of every book on dinosaurs that I could lay my hand on. I used to walk about the house reciting the names, weights and lengths of my favourite dinosaurs with every new book I was bought. The love of dinosaurs slowly faded and gave way to animals closer to home (in both time and space). I still remember being mesmerised by the first smooth newt I caught in the local quarry. It was a male in breeding colours, and I was up catching them during the Easter holidays. I tried (and failed) to catch a stoat in my local woodland (using a wooden trap that I had made and baited). I heard of the elusive and enigmatic pine marten, at that time restricted to the Burren in County Clare; and convinced my dad to take a holiday down that way in hopes of seeing one. That wasn’t to be, but I still visit the Burren frequently to this day. It’s such a unique and amazing landscape.

Eventually, after leaving school, I went to England to start a biology degree. But after a year I left, finding I needed to be outside learning rather than in the lab or classroom. After several months, I managed to secured an apprenticeship with the National Trust. For the next 3 years I explored the Trust’s 2000-acre Crom Estate in County Fermanagh. During this time, I went from an amateur naturalist to a professional ecologist. I surveyed great crested grebes, garden warblers, and even seen my first pine marten. I counted bats emerging from the Old Boat House and skimming across the Lough, gleaning insects as they went. Was wide eyed by the flocks of swallows doing the same thing in the summer sunshine and amazed by the silver washed fritillaries along the wooded rides, or the many damselflies around the green bottoms. But my favourite place was sitting in the Old Castle (when the visitors had all left for the day) looking out across Upper Lough Erne with the two 500-year-old yew trees behind me. Why? Because tucked away under the long-collapsed box hedge was a huge ancient badger sett, and the badgers within, didn’t seem to notice me sitting on the white bench watching them looking for worms on the neatly mown lawns.

After Crom, came a move to the Mourne Mountains in County Down.

Two years as a Ranger with Mourne Heritage Trust, followed by a second stent with the National Trust as a Warden in Murlough National Nature Reserve. It was here that I really delved into habitat management, with both bracken and thorny scrub a problem in the Dunes. It also was also where some disillusionment started to creep into my world, as well as panic at the scale of the crisis confronting us. Frustration also, at the rigidity of traditional conservation management, and the unsatisfactory outcomes, as well as the slowness of large NGOs’ to change and implement new techniques. Annoyance with the statutory authorities inaction in many areas lead me to leave the NGO sector and move into Consultancy.

For the next 6 years I worked in a couple of large engineering consultancies, primarily in Ecological Impact Assessment. Focused on large infrastructure projects including windfarms and road schemes. After this, came 10 years as a self-employed ecologist, and thus was when I started my first business. This, after almost a decade spent in nature reserves, really showed me that Ireland really is a green desert devoid of wildlife across much of the landscape. And while it if still often visually stunning in places, the lack of native trees and other indigenous flora is nothing short of a national disgrace.

I have become increasingly concerned of the ‘business as usual’ behaviour I see around me in the business world, or that some people think that simply ‘tweaking’ behaviours will be sufficient in order to combat global heating and the biodiversity crisis; when what we need is an entirely new business and lifestyle paradigm. This is why I founded Wild Gaia.

I felt that there was a need for a new dynamic and nimble organisation that can adapt quickly to emerging science in the field and implement change quickly and without the normal substantial time lag. I also wanted an organisation that would hold a mirror up to government and NGO’s and directly and indirectly also pressure them into change. I also wanted a home for other disenfranchised ecologists, and to create jobs for up-and-coming young people. Finally, I wanted an organisation that could take ideas from its membership and actively address the biodiversity crisis and global heating adaptation in real-time.

Welcome to the future of nature conservation management and climate change adaptation.

Welcome to Wild Gaia.

Cormac Loughran

Founder – Wild Gaia